Fireflies in the Morning
by stress
Summary: Written for Camp NaNoWriMo 2011. Emma Sullivan thought it would be easy to come to New York and find her brother.  But with new friends, a job she doesn't want, and the fact that everyone thinks she's a boy... well, maybe easy isn't the right word.
1. prologue

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

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><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

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><p><em>So that's what they call a family:<br>mother, daughter, father, son,  
>guess that everything you heard about is true.<br>So you ain't got any family,  
>who said you needed one?<br>Ain't ya glad nobody's waitin' up for you?_

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><p><strong>PROLOGUE;<strong>

**Newsboys' Lodging House, Manhattan**

It was dark out. The air was stuffy and hot. Jack Kelly twitched as the sweat pooled at the nape of his neck, making him itch and his shoulders roll as the drops dripped down his back, trickling and _tickling_. His skin was slick. He left a faint grey trail, a trail of dirt and ink and old ashes, wherever he slapped the moisture away with the flat of his hand.

Summer in the city was always miserable. Jack sniffed, then scowled when the stink hit him; he couldn't be entirely sure it wasn't coming off his tattered shirt or dusty old vest. Thick strands of greasy, sandy brown hair stuck to his skin and he huffed in annoyance before giving in and wiping at his forehead. Another dirty swipe, another dirty mark, and the newsboy couldn't find it in him to care any less.

Damn it, he cursed to himself. She was late!

She was late, more than an hour now, and he didn't know what in the world had possessed him to keep on waiting. Maybe it was how she pleaded with him yesterday, her big doe eyes shining and her lips turned down ever-so-slightly in a way that just made him feel guilty as sin. How could Jack say no? Especially with that other girl standing there, all soft-hearted menace and a scowl that warned him against not showing up.

And that was another thing... why the hell did _he_ care what _she_ thought? What was he _doing_?

He wished he could've talked this over better with David because Davey... Davey of all of them, he would know what to do. Davey would tell Jack what he should do. He had brains, after all, and right then Jack needed someone with brains. He couldn't count on the little he had—not when his heart was beating incredibly fast and he couldn't stop asking himself: what was she doing here? How did she find him? How did he not know she was out there, looking for him?

Jack should've been looking for her! Imagine that, all this time, she was out there. He should've known!

Scowling as he paced, he left good-sized boot prints scattered in all directions in the dust, trailing the dirt back and forth as he walked alongside the curb. He absently kicked it as he took another turn, his scowl deep and determined. Jack kept his eyes peeled, open and alert and waiting for any sign of her. This was where she told him to come, this was where she said she would meet him, and while he could just head inside the lodging house, maybe tip Tumbler a penny or two to keep watch for him, Jack decided he could spare a couple minutes more. He had given his word and that was all he had to give. He could wait.

Jack had the sinking suspicion that, In that way, he was trying to prove to himself that he wasn't the scabber everyone thought he was deep down. If he couldn't stand by her now that she'd found him again, who could he stand by?

The sweat that formed at his temple was dribbling now, slicking his hair down to his puckered flesh. When the sweat hit his eyes, they stung something awful and Jack swallowed back another curse, rubbing roughly until the sting was more of a dull ache. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to go pacing in this sticky humidity and he slowed to an anxious tap-tap-tap as he rubbed his eyes, then rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth in obvious agitation. It only got worse when the next time his dry and thirsty tongue darted out and licked his lips, all he tasted was the salt. He spat on the ground, though he could barely spare the fluid, and tried his damndest not to notice how miserable he was feeling.

Fireflies twinkled around him, flashes of yellow here and there, snatching his attention and making him wonder why the damn things were following him now; mosquitoes buzzed by his ear, a whisper and a hum, and then a quick bite before Jack smacked them away in irritation and, perhaps, just a touch of gratitude. He hadn't seen fireflies in years, not since those long ago days on the edge of Central Park before Francis Sullivan became Jack Kelly and the fireflies simply disappeared

Who went first, he wondered, the girl or the fireflies? Why were they both back now—

Damn it, why was she looking for _him_?

A horse came clomping down the street; Jack just lowered his head and backed away as the beast passed. There was a time when he would've jumped on its back, unhitch it from its carriage and ride off into the night. But now, only a few months removed from that careless, reckless, charming son of a gun, Jack bowed his head and waited until he was once again alone under the muggy Manhattan sky.

He didn't know what was worse: that he was alone, or that he _wasn't_. Because, while he gave his word, and while he arrived just like he promised, Jack Kelly couldn't say that he really wanted her to show up. If she did, then he couldn't be Jack Kelly anymore.

Jack Kelly, New York's infamous Cowboy, wanted nothing more than to forget that he'd ever been Francis Sullivan. And if that meant forgetting her, then that was what he would have to do.

Maybe it would be them both if they just forgot...

After wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers, cleaning them as best he could, Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded up pamphlet. There was a cowboy on the cover, and the name Western Jim, and it was creased all over from the hundreds of times he had handled it, reading it from front to back, living the dream. He hoped to make it out West one day, out to Santa Fe, and even though he was coming up on his eighteenth birthday and he was still stewing in New York City, Jack hadn't given up on his dream just yet.

Except that night. Just then he had no time for childish whims or what-might-be's. Half past ten by now—well past her curfew, too—and still eerily alone, Jack kept waiting. Even though he knew he shouldn't, he stayed outside until the mosquitoes got their fill and the front of his greasy hair was drenched in sticky sweat.

He slapped the pamphlet absently against his thighs, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed. He forgot about the sweat and licked his dry, chapped lips again, almost gagging when he tasted the mixture of sweat and dirt. What he wouldn't give for a sarsaparilla just then! Tibby's was looking better and better as every moment past but, stubborn to a fault, he wouldn't leave. Besides, this was Tibby's fault in a way. Would she ever have found him if it wasn't for that diner?

Something—maybe it was that same stubborn glint he knew so well, or maybe it was the determined look of her companion—told him that: yes, yes she would. He just wasn't sure he _wanted_ to be found.

Jack kept on slapping the pamphlet, holding the side so that the pages could barely wave in the stifled summer air. Taking a deep breath, just about ready to give up, he stopped what he was doing. He lifted the thin book so that it was level with his chest and let it fall open for real. Worn pages split, revealing the exact middle of the paper pamphlet. But Jack wasn't looking at the words; instead, pulling out a small scrap, he palmed it before shutting up Western Jim and stowing it in the back pocket where he normally kept it.

With his free hand, he fumbled in his front pocket until he found one sad, sorry squashed cigarette that he kept for those moments when his nerves needed a little something to take the edge off of them. He stuck the cigarette between slightly parted lips—covered in lint and more dirt, the cigarette paper tasted no better than the lips themselves—then grabbed the box of matches he brought with him.

When he left the lodging house earlier that night, he hadn't thought to bring any fresh hand-rolled cigarettes—though he did grab the matches. Jack might not have known he would need them but, well, he did now.

He lit his cigarette first, inhaling deeply and puffing until the tip caught and he blew the first plumes of silver smoke out through his nose. But, rather than shake the flame out, Jack held onto the match. Even when the fire began to lick at the tips of his fingers, he didn't extinguish it. Slowly, his jaw firm and jutted in determination, he placed the flame to the scrap of paper.

Up close, the scrap of paper was revealed to be a photograph—and a photograph that caught fire faster than he expected. Before the flames started to devour them, there were two faces staring up at him: a dark-haired man in a simple cap with a scoundrel's grin, holding up a little girl, six, maybe seven years old, her prim curls styled around a face that was as angelic as it was mischievous. Her pudgy fingers were barely visible as her arm was wrapped around the man's neck. A sleeve from a woman's dress was on the edge of the photograph to the left but that was it. A jagged tear ran right down the middle, separating the man and the girl from anyone else that might have been there.

The fire was gobbling up the face of the young girl before, cursing under his breath, Jack—still staring at the photograph—burned his finger with the match that was still lit. He tossed the match aside, sucking on his middle two fingers as the rest of the picture quickly burned away.

Only then, when the snapshot was reduced to ash, and those ashes were scattered in the dirt that lay underneath the flickering gas lamp just outside the lodging house's back door... only then did Jack realize that he was done waiting. Maybe he knew that already. Maybe he gave up in the instant that he placed the match's flame to the one reminder he had left of who he used to be. Either way, he wiped his hands—patting his two burned fingers lightly—against his trousers and walked right through the pile of ashes.

Jack didn't even think about heading back into the lodging house. He didn't want to explain himself to Kloppman and he didn't know what he would do if she showed up after all; even worse, he wanted to avoid seeing her friend and that strangely accusing expression at the same time.

But, just because he didn't stay on Duane Street, that didn't mean he didn't have anywhere else to go.

Jack could've gone to Tibby's, but he didn't think he was _that_ thirsty. Medda's place, Irving Hall, that was always a good haunt when he needed a to lie low for a bit, but Medda was a friend of his father's—what if the girls found their way there?

No... there was only one place for him. Which was why, almost an hour later and close to midnight, Jack Kelly found himself sitting outside of the Jacobs family's apartment, trying to find a comfortable position on the stair so many feet up in the air.

So, with his hand on his cheek to protect him from the rusty, metal railing, Jack sat on the fire escape and waited for Sarah to rise with the sun. And when a firefly glowed greenish-yellow in the distance, he wished its damn light would just go out already.

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><p><strong>End Note<strong>: I hadn't intended on starting this new fic until I completed _Red _(which has about 4 chapters left to it) but, since today starts Camp NaNoWriMo, I decided to try my hand at writing a 50,000+ words fanfic during the month of July. So I restarted this and plotted out what I'd like to see happen and decided that I would basically post it as I worked on it. This is the first time I've done a NaNoWriMo project as a fanfic - I've written the first 50k of five original novels through NaNo - and I think it might be interesting to see it unfold.

One other thing... about this story? I've been interested in looking at all of the cliches in Newsies fandom lately and trying to turn them on their head. I've seen one or two really good AU time-travel fics that really made sense and, well, I thought I would try my hand at writing that same-old cliche of giving a canon character a sibling. So, yeah, it may seem like a contrived concept so far but give it a try, okay? I promise it'll all make sense - including what happened in this chapter. Even though it is a prologue, the next chapter will start the arc that leads up to the scene shown above.

So, yes, if you would be so kind as to tell me what you think? And if you're a follower of _Red_? I plan on having the next chapter out as early as tomorrow - despite trying to write the 50k with _Fireflies_, I still want to finish _Red _as soon as possible!

- _stress, 07.01.11_


	2. one: emma

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

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><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER ONE;<strong>

Emma Sullivan disembarked from the train that morning a well-mannered girl of fourteen with wavy brown hair that fell past her shoulders and down her back. A white hat was perched smartly on top to shield her hazel eyes from the summer sun. Aunt Moira had gifted her with a white dress to match, a white dress tailored to fit with white roses decorating the lacy sleeves. It was to be the traveling dress she wore on her trip up to Boston, on her trip back to school.

It ended up stashed in a leather satchel, stowed behind a pile of forgotten boxes in an abandoned alleyway somewhere in downtown New York.

She was nervous chit of a girl, a little mousey, but stubborn and determined most of all. When Emma put her mind to something, she followed through with it wholeheartedly in that wayward manner that used to give her Aunt Moira one of her pinching headaches. There was nothing in the world that could stop the girl. And, as she swapped her fancy dress for a pair of clothes that she'd made sure to bring with her when she left Pennsylvania, Emma felt she was well on her way to accomplishing what she had set out to do.

The trousers and the button-down shirt she pulled out of her satchel were a little oversized and she had to roll up both her sleeves and the hems of the pants so that she wouldn't trip. Her next door neighbor Mary O'Halloran had borrowed them from her younger brother James, and while James O'Halloran was only twelve, Emma had always been on the small size for her age. All the same, she was learned enough by now to know that she could hardly expect to pass herself off as an ordinary lad in a traveling dress. And, thankfully, the large shirt was more than enough to hide the pouch of money she kept on a string around her neck. It was all her own money, her savings and her spending money for school. Without it, she wouldn't stand a chance surviving in this strange and hectic place.

Her wardrobe, the clothes she wore and _how_ she wore them... Emma was aware they weren't the only parts of her that needed to be disguised. After changing into the strange clothes—she kept on her own shoes because they were black and sensible and from far enough away, could pass for a boy's—she stuffed the dress into the satchel before reaching back inside the bag carefully.

There, where they were tucked secretly underneath all of the clothes, was a pair of silver shears. The hardest thing to borrow before she set off on the train, the shears were the third-most important item she brought with her apart from the clothes and the photograph she, well, borrowed from Aunt Moira. If Emma really wanted to succeed, the shears were absolutely essential.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before knocking her straw hat to the dirt and letting her long, wavy hair fall together to one side. Scooping her hair up with one hand and holding awkwardly onto the shears with the other, Emma didn't exhale until she made the first cut and hundreds and hundreds of light brown strands fluttered to the dirty ground. After that it was easy, snipping this way and that until she could hardly grip what was left.

By the time she was done, her hair was choppy and short and she had no idea what she looked like. Despite all of her preparations, all of the inventiveness and the pleading, the borrowing and the planning that it took to get her to Manhattan, Emma had forgotten one important thing: a mirror.

Still, her hair was short when she was finished—and only boys had short hair. The way she saw it, the fact that it was probably very messy and quite unkempt only added to the picture of bedraggled youth she was going for. Letting out a giddy laugh, Emma placed the shears back into the satchel, then ran both her hands through her hair. She felt so _free_ without all of it weighing her down. Ever since she was a little girl, then after when she went to live with her Aunt Moira, she hadn't been allowed to cut it. And now she had.

She could _do_ this.

Because she had borrowed the shears with the intent to return them, and because she refused to let any harm come to the dress her aunt had so carefully picked out for her, Emma hid the satchel as best she could, then scurried out like a mouse onto the main street, eager to see a street sign or a landmark that would help her remember this place. After she found Francis, she knew she would have to return for the bag.

After she found Francis—

_If _she found Francis.

Emma had to admit that she thought it would be easier than it turned out to be. Maybe it was her romantic outlook, but she never expected the city to be so, well, big. And dirty. And, she added with a wrinkle of her nose, _smelly_. There were people everywhere she looked, people of every type and class, and to her astonishment—and partly to her horror—no one seemed to notice her at all. One man actually sneered when she accidentally bumped into him, then gave her a rough nudge with his knee when she stumbled and refused to even look her way when she stammered out a quick apology.

Then, of course, was the hard and true fact that, while she knew that Francis was in this city as late as mid-July—not too far back—that didn't mean that she had any idea where to find him. The only clue she had was that he was a newsboy, he sold newspapers for a living, and that most newsboys could be found lodging in a newsboys' lodging house.

Which was precisely why Emma felt she had to pass herself off as a boy in order to find her brother. They wouldn't let a girl check the lodging houses for Francis, but another boy? If she followed everything she learned from slyly observing James and his friend Billy, she might just manage to be accepted as another one of New York's "newsies". All it took was spitting more than was proper and a bouncing sort of walk that made her stomach feel queasy.

Or maybe that was the nerves.

It only got worse the longer she spent aimlessly walking up and down the streets, pretending like she belonged there and trying not to quail away from anyone who _did _notice her. She stuck out her budding chest and gave daring looks at any child that was smaller than her, all the while trying to keep an eye out for one of those lodging houses she'd heard mention of. She hoped that there would be some great big sign declaring it as such, otherwise she wasn't too sure she'd ever find one.

By mid-afternoon, Emma was feeling weak on her feet. Though her shoes were surely comfortable once, she hadn't expected to spend so many hours in them and she couldn't tell what hurt worse: the tender flesh of her instep or the dime-sized blisters she felt blossoming on the backs of both heels. She was just wondering if maybe she should start looking for a boardinghouse of her own when her wobbly legs caused her knees to buckle and, taking a few quick steps to her right before she recovered, she found herself bumping into another person on the street.

But, instead of it being someone like the man in the stovepipe hat from earlier, she whispered a quick apology only to look over at a young boy who was watching her curiously. He was nine, maybe ten years old, with brown hair that fell just short of his eyes and a cap that was only a few shades lighter. A wooden sword was tucked inside his brown vest; Emma could only tell it was a sword because of the roughly hewed handle that stuck out. Most of all, he had a handful of newspapers clasped in one grubby hand.

A newsboy!

It took all Emma had to remember at the last minute that she was supposed to be a boy. So, rather than drop a curtsy, she stuck her hand out roughly. "Sorry about that," she said again, and when he kept on looking at her with a queer expression on his young face, Emma realized that it was her high-pitched voice that was making him question her. Clearing her throat, she tried to make her voice deeper. "Bumping into you, I mean. That was my mistake."

The boy looked at Emma's outstretched hand, glanced at his own free hand, then spit in it. To her disgust, he slapped it against hers. The spit squelched as their two palms met. "'S okay. I'm still in one piece, right?"

"Uh...yes, I suppose." Emma took her hand back and, trying not to make it too noticeable, wiped the smeared spit against James' old trousers. Then, taking in the boy's get-up and the newspapers he still held onto, she said, "If you don't mind me saying so... you are a newsboy, aren't you?"

The boy nodded earnestly. "That's right," he said, and there was no denying the touch of pride that colored his voice, "I'm a newsie. No finer gig in the world, you ask me."

She couldn't believe her luck—which, since Emma's luck never was much, just meant that she had to go along and _press_ it. "That's wonderful! I mean, uh, good, yeah, I agree. By any chance, do you stay at a lodging house for newsboys? You know... for boys like you, and me. Me, too. Because that's what I am: a newsboy."

"I wish I could," he said wistfully, "but Mama says I'm not allowed. Say, what's with the way you're talkin'? You sound awful funny."

"Oh." Emma tried not to look too dejected. It couldn't be the pitch of her voice—this was the deepest she could make it. And then she realized: it wasn't _how_ she was speaking, but _what_ she was saying. Trying to mimic his speech, she went on to ask, "I, um, I guess that means you can't tell me where newsboys, I mean, boys like us... where they sleep, eh?"

It was almost as if she had insulted him by assuming he wouldn't know where to send her. Puffing out his thin chest, he said in that same proud sort of voice, "Of course I can!"

She bit back her squeal of relief, hurriedly swapping it for a manly sort of cough. "Really?"

The boy's face was twisted in that same disbelieving expression but, friendly and willing to show off how much he knew, he went on to answer her. "Yup. If, uh, if you're really lookin' for a place to say, there's always the lodging house on Duane Street." He pointed down the street. "It's only a coupla blocks over that way. The best place to stay, if ya ask me."

Emma nearly clapped her hands in delight. Instead, she settled for spitting in the dirt, managing to make the whole glob come out on one try. "Thanks..."

"Les," the boy supplied with a slight shrug.

"Les," she agreed. "Thank you. I won't forget this."

And she beamed so cheerily over at him that when the boy watched her with that funny look one last time, she hardly noticed at all. She wondered if she should tip him—it was the sort of thing Aunt Moira would've done—but Emma didn't like the idea of drawing her bag of money out and letting others see it. She would just have to hold true to her word and remember the boy Les so that she could find him and repay him for his kindness when her errand was complete.

Even though all he gave her was the street name—Duane—and a way to go, Emma was a little surprised when she actually found the lodging house, and on her own, too! Just like she expected, it was a small building that had a great big sign proclaiming it to be the Newsboys' Lodging House. All of her doubts were gone in the instant it took her to read that sign. So pleased to have found it, Emma even managed to forget that her feet hurt as she started for the door.

Hmm, she thought. Maybe it _would_ be as easy as she first guessed. To think Aunt Moira rarely let her out on her own, and only then when she was taking the train up to Boston. But she'd done it. She would show her aunt she was more of a Sullivan than a Porter, even if that was something Aunt Moira insisted she shouldn't be so proud of.

She could hardly wait. So, after running her hands anxiously through her newly shorn hair and straightening her oversized shirt, Emma took a deep breath, patted her pocket to make sure the picture was still there, then walked inside the lodging house as if she belonged there.

The first thing she noticed about the place was the smell. It was different than the reek out on the street but that didn't make it any better. Her nose wrinkled on its own as the stink of the hundreds of boys who stayed there overwhelmed her. It was ripe and nearly festering in the summer air and she longed to tell the proprietor that it would be in everyone's best interest if he, perhaps, opened a window or two to let the lobby air out.

But, when she actually walked over to the desk that sat in the far corner of the dim lobby, all words failed her. There was an old man sitting at the desk, hunched over as his pencil scratched away at the book set in front of him. He had a black bowler hat on his head, tufts of grey hair poking out from underneath, and a pair of glasses that were perched at the end of his nose. He muttered under his breath, something about carrying the one's, and Emma decided to wait until he was done before she disturbed him.

It seemed like forever before he dropped his pencil in frustration and, pushing his glasses back in place, looked up and over at her. The man had dark, beetle-like eyes that roved over her quickly, sizing her up and making his own decisions as to who she was and what she was doing in his lodging house before Emma had even said a single word. Then, picking up his pencil again and turning to a fresh page a little further down in his book, he put the tip of the pencil to the paper. "What can I do for you?"

Before Emma could answer, another boy came breezing into the room, bringing a fresh wave of the thick, pungent stink in with him—worse, even, because of the stale odor of horse droppings and cigar smoke that clung to him like a second skin. He was a short boy, maybe a couple of years older than Emma, with slicked-down black hair, a crooked grin and a plaid vest that would've sent Aunt Moira rushing to the tailors for a new one. _After_ she burned the first one, of course.

He looked familiar in a way that Emma couldn't place; as far as she knew, she'd never even seen him before. She found herself staring at him intently, trying to place his chipmunk cheeks and realizing that he was the sort of newsie that she was trying to pass herself of as—and not quite so successfully, either. Unlike Emma, who had waited patiently for the old man's attention, this boy came in whistling absently on a battered tin harmonica. He didn't stop at the desk, instead heading straight for the steps that led up to the next floor.

Before the supervisor could stop him, the boy paused on the first step. "Hey, Kloppy, just goin' up for a cigar," he called back over his shoulder, almost as an afterthought. He cracked a joker's grin that had Emma's one hand flying to the pouch of money she kept underneath her shirt. "Don't mind me, right?"

When he spoke, he spoke in a nasally, exaggerated accent that Emma struggled to understand. She hoped she wouldn't have to talk like that in order to be believed. It was bad enough that she had to lower her voice and try not to sound as if she had any schooling. She doubted she could ever pull off an accent like that one!

The old man, however, he had no trouble understanding his lodger. "You go on, Race," he said, waving the short boy up the stairs with the gnarled hand that held the pencil. Emma watched him until even the soles of his shoes had disappeared before she realized the old man was once again waiting on her.

She gave a little start when she finally _did _notice and he smiled over at her. "Now, son, where were we?"

"Good afternoon, sir," she said, lowering her voice as much as she could. If she was going to try her best to pass for a young boy, she needed to actually _sound_ more like one, even if she didn't even attempt to mimic the other boy's accent. "I'm looking for a place to stay."

The old supervisor looked down his nose at her. Tapping his pencil against his bottom lip, he didn't blink and he didn't say anything. Emma held her breath, trying not to let her chest move up and down too much. Finally, he gestured with the tip of his pencil at the sign posted next to him.

It read: _No Runaways._

"You got a home already?" the old man asked curtly.

Emma swallowed. A little belatedly, it occurred to her just then that borrowing James' clothes might not have been the smartest of ideas. The pants were new, the shirt barely worn, and she could only imagine how she looked—certainly not like the dark-haired boy that had already slipped past. Her nails were clean, her skin was clear and, despite an afternoon wandering around in search of this place, she had the sinking suspicion she might smell more of her aunt's favorite perfume than the sweat and dirt stink she associated with the other boys.

She wouldn't lie. A good Catholic girl through and through, Aunt Moira hadn't dragged Emma to Mass five nights a week without her learning to abide by the Ten Commandments as a whole other set of laws that needed to be obeyed. Still, she hadn't come all this way for nothing...

"My home is far from here," she said, and that was the truth, "but it's no place for me. My mother is dead," again, not a lie, "and I need to do what I can to help my father."

"And staying here will help?" asked the man with a slight rise of his eyebrows.

"I... I thought I could sell papers. Make it in the big city. If you can make it here," she said, echoing something she had once learned from a father she could barely remember, "you can make it anywhere." It wasn't much of an education, she had to admit, but it was something that stuck with her which was far more than she could say about Sister Mary Agatha's never-ending lectures on astronomy.

"Mmm... well, I'm sorry," the old man, this Kloppy, told her and he set his pencil back down with a final sort of gesture, "but I just I don't think I can help you after all."

Emma's heart sank. "Why not?"

"We don't just turn away runaways," he explained, trying to hide a knowing grin. "This is a lodging house for _boys_, miss. I can't be allowing a young lady to stay the night. However, I might be able to recommend a girls' home, if you need it."

"How did you know?" she marveled.

The old man's dark eyes twinkled behind his glasses. "You need more than short hair and boy's clothes to fool me. Now, why don't you tell me why you're really here?"

This was it. Despite her planning and her borrowing and her impulsive nature—because cutting off all of her hair was _quite _impulsive, seeing as how Aunt Moira was going to have her head when she saw!—Emma had to turn to her back-up plan. She wasn't going to be able to stay here, not in this particular lodging house at least, and she wouldn't be able to try to blend in and find her brother. But that didn't mean she'd come all this way, trading her train ticket to Boston for one for New York, risking her aunt's formidable temper... she hadn't done everything she'd done just to be sent away now. Besides, he must've known from the beginning, too, and he listened to her anyway. Maybe he could still help her.

Lifting up her chin so that she was looking straight into Kloppy's eyes, Emma said surely, "I'm looking for Francis Sullivan, sir." There. Now he knew.

But it seemed as if Kloppy _didn't_ know. He shook his head a few short times. "Never heard of him."

"Really?" The old man sounded quite genuine but Emma couldn't allow herself to take his word for it at once. For her own sake, she had to ask again: "There's no one lodging here with that name?"

He patted the open book with the flat of his palm. "I keep track of them all right here. You can believe me, miss, when I say that there's not a single Sullivan in the whole of this book." His tone was firm but there was a gentleness that came out when he smiled at her, his face all wrinkles and hard lines. Maybe he felt bad for her, maybe he just wanted the young girl to leave his boys' establishment, but the supervisor added, "But I can still help you with lodgings if you need them." And, this time, he didn't even wait for her reply. Grabbing a scrap of paper from a messy pile off to the side, Kloppy used his pencil to scrawl down a quick address. He slid it across the desktop towards Emma. "Do you know where this is?"

Emma glanced at the sharp strokes, the slanted numbers, the shaky words and for all it meant to her, it could've been one of her Latin practice books up at school. Biting her lips, trying not to let her frustration blossom into tears—and, oh, did her feet hurt now!—she shook her head. It was so different that there wasn't any hair to sway as she moved but, strangely enough, she didn't regret her rash decision with the shears.

Though that's probably one of the only things she _didn't_ regret.

"That's fine. I didn't think you were from around here," Kloppy said and, as patiently and as kindly as possible, he gave Emma very precise directions how to get from Duane Street to the Bottle Alley Home for Girls just on the outskirts of the old Mulberry Bend. He nodded certainly when Emma left and warned her from arriving at the Home any later than sundown.

And, when she left, sheepishly pulling at the short hairs that tickled her ear, Kloppman knew for absolutely sure that the girl wasn't from anywhere near the city. No street-bred kid—boy or girl—from this city would take directions from an old man and actually _thank_ him before heading off to follow them blindly. He silently wished her luck, thinking the poor thing would need it, before turning his pencil back to the ledger at hand.

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: There we go! This is the first chapter - this is where we finally get to meet the "her" from the prologue: Emma, Jack's younger sister. I wanted to throw a couple of canon characters in this chapter, especially since there's going to be some different OC's coming in soon, too. And Bottle Alley, too! I haven't done a Bottle Alley fic in _ages_.

Thank you guys for the response to the prologue! I know it seems so strange that I'm tackling such a fandom cliche but, well, I figure if there's a reason, if it seems realistic, and the sister character actually is a real character... I think it'll work. In fact, I'm really excited about taking this challenge on and, so far, I haven't hit a snag yet (early talk, yeah, but still!). Keep an eye out for the next chapter :)

6k down, 44k to go!

- _stress, 07.04.11_


	3. two: bottle alley

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TWO;<strong>

Thanks to the old supervisor's directions, Emma managed to find the Bottle Alley Home for Girls without much trouble. It wasn't as far as she expected—it seemed as if all she had done since she got off the train was walk—and she assumed that that could be the reason behind him sending her to this particular boardinghouse. Perhaps it was the closest one to Duane Street, over where the Newsboys' Lodging House stood, because when she first came face to face with the facade, she couldn't think of any other reason for sending a young girl out on her own this way.

The Bottle Alley Home was situated on a corner just outside of Mulberry Bend, for which Emma was grateful. It wasn't quite evening yet dusk was quickly approaching—and it was striking how different that part of New York seemed from the train yards. From the men in their bowler hats haunting the alleyway's entrance to the women with one, sometimes two children on their hips, the cries in foreign languages, the shouts, the stench that lingered out into the open street... even if someone told her that Francis lived in the midst of all that squalor, Emma wasn't quite sure she would've been brave enough to go any farther into the garbage-strewn, people-filled alley.

Not that that meant she was all too eager to go inside the Bottle Alley Home, either. There was a single stoop that led up to a wooden door, dotted and dusted with a layer of dirt and grime; a brass knocker, sculpted in the shape of a flower, was level with her eyes and Emma could see it was tarnished from the elements outside. Over her head, she saw a sign—once white, now a dingy grey—that, in faded pink lettering, read: _Bottle Alley Home for Girls, established 1893. _

No doubt about it. She was in the right place.

Maybe because she was expected to go inside for herself, Emma was a little more hesitant to reach for the knocker. It had seemed such a brilliant idea at the time, and she'd been ever so grateful to that old superintendent man Kloppy, because how else would she have found a place to sleep? And not only sleep, but to wash her face again and feel like a proper human being? Now, though, now she wasn't so sure...

In the end, the lure of a working waterspout was the deciding factor for the girl; that, and the aching, screaming blisters on her feet that begged her for relief. If only to have somewhere to sit comfortably until the pain went away, Emma would follow Kloppy's advice and turn to this place for lodgings. So, before she lost her nerve, she grabbed hold of the tarnished knocker and knocked.

It seemed like an eternity before the knock was answered. Emma very nearly tried the door handle itself to see if it would open—and it would've, too—but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was too rude. Rather, she stood and she waited, trying not to think how rude those inside were being, keeping her outside waiting when, just when she least expected it, the door swung inward and, filling the entire doorway with her presence, she appeared.

_She_ was a short woman, both squat and round, but her shape fit her; having seen her, Emma couldn't imagine her any other way. She had grey hair like soft steel pulled back in a loose bun at the nape of her neck and bright, wide eyes the color of cornflowers. A flour-dusted apron was tied neatly around a lilac dress that was so nicely made that Emma wondered what shop the woman might've bought it from before realizing that she probably made it herself.

There was that first moment of awkward silence as Emma looked up at her and she glanced down at the thin creature, dirty and tired and—though she thought herself as very brave—almost weak with nerves, but giddy with pride that she'd made it this far on her own. Emma's heart was racing, she felt she would just _die_ if this woman didn't let her in and, from the way the woman started to shake her head, she suspected that that might be just what she had in mind.

"I'm sorry," the old woman began firmly but kindly in a slightly accented voice, "but we don't allow boys in here. If you need lodgings, then I suggest—now hold on a second, there, you're not a young boy, are you?" She had cheeks like a pair of apples, and they were dusted a nice rosy pink as she got a better look at Emma and grinned. "Oh, but you sure look like one, though, my dear. Hurry up now, do come in. I can see you must be in need of some help if all you've to wear is your brother's old hand-me-downs."

Emma didn't have the heart to tell this woman that her borrowed clothes were neither her brother's nor hand-me-downs; by the way the woman placed one sturdy hand on Emma's shoulder and steered her right inside the Home, she could see that it wouldn't matter either way. With a sudden recognition, she decided this woman was part of the same ilk as Aunt Moira and Sister Constance, the Bible study mistress up at school. It was just easier for Emma to swallow her protests and her indignation and allow this woman to lead her in to the small, cramped lobby in front.

Besides, it was what she had wanted, after all.

This lobby was vastly different from the other lobby she had been in that afternoon—and it wasn't just the smell that made her think so. Despite the stench that she'd waded through, getting_ to_ Bottle Alley, the inside was a whole lot sweeter and, as Emma passed potted plants, flowers and ferns, she knew where exactly the pleasant fragrances were coming from. There were countless of them, all lined in a neat row down the narrow hallway that led from the front door to the small room where the woman was bringing her.

And she was still talking—

"My name is Mrs. Cook, dear, but feel free to call me Cookie if you like, most of the girls here do." Her friendly smile assured Emma that it would be perfectly fine for her to call her by such a name but Emma knew, then and there, that this woman would be Mrs. Cook until the day she left the Bottle Alley Home. "Of course, I'll need _your_ name... for my ledgers, you see, can't have anyone taking a bed if I don't have record of it. Tell me, did Alfred send you this way?"

It took Emma a moment to realize that the question had been directed at her. Drawing her attention away from a large orchid in a planter just to her right, she said, "I'm sorry, who?"

"Alfred Kloppman?" Mrs. Cook asked again. "Sits at a desk on Duane Street? Was he the one who sent you over? He mostly does, you know, if a young girl finds his lodgings before ours."

_Kloppman_... _Klopp_—oh. "Do you mean the man called Kloppy?" Emma asked politely, disregarding the fact that the woman could tell how her afternoon had gone so plainly just by casting eyes on her once. "If so, then yes... he was the one who gave me this address."

"That's what I thought." With a satisfied huff, Mrs. Cook took a seat at one of only two pieces of furniture in this small square of a room, while using the other: she sat a battered, old desk using a stool that kept the woman sitting up, ramrod straight like a ruler. She reached in the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a black book similar to the one Emma had seen Kloppy—er, Kloppman—poring over. "For Alfred, I'll mark you down as paid for the first night, dear. After that, it's a nickel a night, two if you're feeling peckish and want some of the evening supper." With another slam, she grabbed one of about six different pens from the drawer on her left. "Now, what was your name?"

"Emma Sullivan."

She flipped the book open with one, quick practiced motion. Her pen in hand, Mrs. Cook paused. "Two m's, two l's?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Emma watched as Mrs. Cook dutifully took down her information, rattling off the Home rules as she maneuvered her felt tip pen expertly across the open page. The one about no boys being allowed was obvious, especially since that was how Mrs. Cook had greeted her at the door, and so did the one about a ten o'clock curfew—that was actually an hour later than Aunt Moira enforced back in Pennsylvania and, despite already being so far out of her aunt's reach, Emma found she was looking forward to staying out past nine.

Mrs. Cook seemed to have lost Emma's attention somewhere around rule eight—something about no pets, up to and including dogs, cats and pigs—but the old matron was practiced enough at this routine after six long years at the desk to know by then that her words were going in one ear and out the other. She settled on passing Emma a type-written sheet with all of the Bottle Alley Home's rules fancily inked upon it.

"Here's a copy of your own," she said, handing the piece of stock paper over to Emma before placing her felt tip pen on top of the ledger book and shoving that Emma's way, too. "Now, if you would sign in right here for me. Your signature if you can manage or just an x if you can't, that's a girl."

Emma hadn't taken two years of penmanship with one of the strictest tutors Erie had to offer without learning how to sign her own name. With a little more flourish than necessary, she added her name below the shaky hand of a girl who seemed to have too many _s_'s in her short name; that, or the last person who signed in preferred to sign their signature with as many loops and swirls as they could fit on the page.

Mrs. Cook watched over her, nodding approvingly at the neat, steady penmanship. "You're in luck, too, I should add. None of the other girls have turned in for the night just yet, so you've got your fair pick of beds for your first night. I think... yes, I think the Daisy Room would be the best for you." She pointed behind her to the narrow hall on her left. "You'll find the stairs back there, dear. You go on up, it's the third door on your right."

When Emma simply stood there, too amazed that everything was going so smoothly, Mrs. Cook clucked her tongue. "Go on, get. I have to help Mrs. Addiman with supper before the other girls start pouring in." She let out a small, high trill of a laugh. "They don't call me Cookie for nothing."

And with that, Mrs. Cook shooed Emma towards the back of the house before she went another way, disappearing down a separate hall that had branched off from the far side of the small room.

* * *

><p>It was, Alfred Kloppman decided, very difficult for him to do his sums and keep his ledger up to date when all the boys kept coming in and out before curfew would lend him his nightly peace.<p>

First, he was interrupted when Specs and Dutchy came in arguing over something so silly as what a nun's hat was called and only after Kloppman assured them that it really _was_ called a wimple did they scurry up to the bunkroom and get ready to lay down for the night. Then he was interrupted again when Skittery burst in like an ill wind, being trailed by Tumbler asking him about a lady friend; ducking his head to hide his grin, Kloppman let that one pass without getting involved. And then _again_ when Bumlets, Pie Eater and the perpetually sniffling Snoddy came in at once, teasing Bumlets about taking such a long spin on the ceiling fan at Tibby's that he was dizzy enough to stumble when he was done.

By the time Jack Kelly came strutting in through the lobby, Kloppman had just about given up on his work. Between refereeing the boys' squabbles, making sure the older fellas didn't take advantage of the younger boys—or, in the case of Skittery and Tumbler, the other way around—and warning some of the others that, should they break that darn ceiling fan, he wasn't going to help them pay off old Mr. Tibby for the mistake, his head was spinning almost as much as a fan—and that wasn't counting how his mind kept turning to that lost little girl who walked into the lobby earlier that afternoon.

In all the years he'd sat at that desk, he couldn't _count_ the amount of times he'd had some silly girl in there, trying to pass herself off as a lad for one reason or another. Usually they were running from something or chasing after one of the boys upstairs and Kloppman had to learn early on how to pick the lovesick girls and the ones in trouble out of any real, prospective lodgers. It wasn't difficult. More often than not, she might forget that most boys didn't have chests that stuck out or a long strand of silky hair might peek out from beneath her hat.

And yet... he was surprised at this girl's gumption. She actually cut her hair off as if that would fool him. It was a risky move, a reckless move and he thought she would regret her rashness when it began to grow. Then again, he mused to himself, if she ended up lodging over by Mulberry Bend, maybe it would be even smarter if she kept her hair short. That lice could itch something awful.

It was such a shame that the Bottle Alley Home for Girls was located in such a down and out part of the slums. He knew Cookie, the old matron that watched over the girls there, and he was sure that that was the best place for any young girl with enough spunk to cut off her hair and try to pretend to be a boy. But that didn't explain just _what_ she'd been doing there in the first place. Who she was, and why exactly she was willing to get inside if only to see if Francis Sullivan was up there in the bunks upstairs.

Francis Sullivan... he hadn't heard that name in years. Now, twice in as many months, he had someone looking for the boy: first Snyder, now the girl. He couldn't keep it to himself—if anything, he was too curious not to—so, just as Jack walked past the desk, absently fiddling with his red neckerchief, untying it and retying it as he went, Kloppman called out to him, "Cowboy. You had a visitor."

That stopped Jack dead in his tracks. His brown eyes went hard and guarded as an innate sense of suspicion he could never shake made his hackles raise. "Really?" he asked. "Who?"

"Couldn't say, but she was looking for a Francis Sullivan."

Like Kloppman, that was the last name Jack expected to hear. He tensed. "Who'd be lookin' for _him_?"

"She didn't leave her name." Kloppman pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, peering out through the glass with a teasing twinkle in his dark eyes. "Though I ought to tell you, she looked a fair bit like you, boy. Same brown hair, same brown eyes, same devilish grin you always got on when the fancy struck her. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was one of yours."

Jack flashed that grin right back over at Kloppman. It was easier than he expected it to be, too. "Ah, but you know that can't be, Kloppy. I ain't got any family."

"I know, I know. But, with you and that Jacobs girl declaring your affection for each other for all the city to see," Kloppman said, a hint of a scolding in his voice. Jack knew very well that Kloppman was too old-fashioned to respect such a bold, brash move, "I didn't think it would be good for another pretty young lady to be searching for your here. Especially after what happened with the old warden."

"Thanks," said Jack gratefully. Snyder, the old warden of the blasted Refuge, he was a nasty piece of work all right. "So you told this girl I didn't stay here?"

"Right, and then I sent her away." Kloppman raised his eyebrows over at Jack. There was something about the way Jack was reacting that didn't sit well with him. He wondered if, perhaps, he should've told the girl that the boy _did _lodge there. Or, looking back on it, if there was someone else who needed to know... "I did the right thing for you, eh, Cowboy?"

"Oh, yeah. Last thing I need is someone huntin' down some mook called Sullivan." Jack forced out a harsh laugh. His smile never wavered, though—he had too much experience to let it give away more than he wanted it to. "Night, Kloppy."

And Alfred Kloppman, who had enough experience of his own to know when he was being lied to straight to the face, let the boy go... but not before he made a small note in his ledger that reminded him of two things. And only one of them had to do with the fact that Jack had managed to slip past him and up the stairs without paying his lodging fare.

The old man sighed. _Again_.

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><p><strong>End Note<strong>: To get a better feel for this story, I've actually got most of the next two chapters following this one written out. The next one will feature more Jack, as well as a friend for Emma. After that, we're going to get even more interesting, and start seeing a twist or two. It'll be interesting :) And fun - I got a real kick out of bringing Mrs. Cook back, and Bottle Alley, too! Not to mention Alfred Kloppman... shoot, doing this so far is like a trip down memory lane for me ;)

12k done so far, 38k to go!

- _stress, 07.07.11_


	4. three: stress

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER THREE;<strong>

"One... two... three."

Emma looked over at the wooden door with a curious frown. Like the other two doors she had passed in this way-too-narrow hall—so narrow, in fact, that she could stand in the middle and reach out and just manage to touch both walls—the door that marked the Daisy Room was wooden and seemingly flimsy though Emma was hesitant to reach out and tap her knuckles against it to test it for real. And, like the tarnished brass knocker on the Home's front door, there was a rendering of a flower painstakingly hand drawn and carefully painted at the top of the door.

She understood then why the room had its name and couldn't help but feel a bit more at ease. Though she didn't remember much about her mother—all of her memories were tied up in a woman with long brown hair, a sweet smile and the smell of fresh bread baking always—she remembered daisies. Margaret Sullivan had loved the flowers and, for that reason now, so did Emma.

Taking the drawing as an omen of good things to come for her, Emma disregarded the fact that this door alone of all the others was the only one that was closed shut. This was where Mrs. Cook had told her to go, and this was where Emma would stay. If only because her feet were all but screaming at her to sit down and take her shoes off, Emma reached for the knob and let herself in.

It was a small room which seemed fitting, considering that everything about the Bottle Alley Home seemed designed for girls Emma's age, if not younger and even smaller. The Daisy Room had the same sort of smell as the lobby, a perfume that made her breathe in deeply and be grateful that Mr. Kloppman had seen through her disguise if only because she hadn't had to linger in the boys' lodging house that much longer. When she caught sight of the potted plant that flanked the doorway, she nodded.

There were plenty of beds in this room, too. Cozy and neat, they were stacked one next to the other next to the next with hardly any room separating them. On first glance, it could've been cramped, but there was such an air of tender care surrounding this room that Emma stuck with cozy. The beds themselves were as narrow as everything else she encountered so far, just the right size for a young girl to lie down in. She would be comfortable in any of them, lying down or sitting up or simply not standing on her aching feet any longer.

_I mean_, she thought to herself, _that girl over there seems quite content sitting on her bunk—_

_Wait... _what_ girl?_

And, with a start, Emma's overworked brain caught up with her tired eyes. Because she wasn't alone as she had expected. One of the bunks, the second one over, was actually occupied already. It was only by some miracle that she hadn't been spotted herself yet.

The first thing she noticed about the other girl was her hair; maybe because she was still in great shock over chopping off all of her own hair, Emma's attention was drawn to it immediately. For one thing, it was so _wild_. A head full of thick dirty blonde curls—more yellows than browns, and in need of a good wash, Emma felt—that reached over her head like a halo and fell down past her shoulders and to the mid of her back. It took over everything so that it was only on a second glance that she noticed the girl's pale skin, the ghosts of freckles on her face and the thick, pouty lips frowning as she looked down at something in her hand. Leaning in a little closer, Emma saw that it was a book.

She was reading a dime store novel, the binding split and the cover folded back so that only the page she was reading was visible. Whatever it was, it must've been entirely engrossing because she barely looked up when the door opened or Emma shuffled inside. And when Emma stopped, taken aback by stumbling onto another person in this cramped room, the girl laughed at something she read, eagerly went to turn to the next page and, while in the middle of the actual turning itself, happened to glance up and notice Emma lurking a few steps past the doorway.

_Okay_, Emma allowed. _So maybe it _wasn't _a miracle_.

Their eyes met at once and Emma was surprised to see that the curly-haired girl had the most beautiful eyes. They were green, but then they weren't, more of a muddle of greens and blues and shocks of a yellow color that might've been hazel but still, not quite. They were almost popping out, wide and staring until Emma felt like this girl was looking straight through her.

Seeing she was no longer alone, the girl quietly set her book down beside her and, swiveling her body so that she was facing Emma, she drew her knees up close to her chest. She didn't climb up from the bunk or do anything else at all, really, except turn and train those strange eyes on Emma and watch her in interest.

Emma felt like she should say something. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I was told I was the first one back. I thought the room would be empty."

She knew at once by the unattractive scowl that marred the other girl's face that she had said the wrong thing—even if she had no idea what that was.

"By any rights, it should be, so I can't fault Cookie for forgettin' 'bout me, can I? The girls don't come back until shift's end well after dark and they've found their supper but, ya see, the supervisor wouldn't let me at my machine this morning."

That didn't seem fair to Emma. "Why not?" she blurted out before she had thought better of it.

"It was just a cough. Just a simple cough but I understand. You gotta be careful, eh?" It was amazing how upbeat she sounded when, only a moment ago, she sounded angry and withdrawn. In fact, she turned on her bunk so that she was easily facing Emma and, her queer eyes shining, she grinned over at her. "All right, open up. You can tell me. Who are ya? You must be a new lodger, else Cookie wouldn't let you up this early."

"My name is Emma." Now that there was no longer any reason for her to pretend to be a boy, she remembered her manners just like any good girl should. She curtsied, just like her aunt had taught her to do whenever she was making a new acquaintance. Her knees were a little stiff from all the walking she'd done that day and the tight trousers were awkward, but she managed.

"They call me Stress."

"Really? I've never heard such a name before."

The girl shrugged. "Trust me, it's better than my Christian name." She was barely blinking, taking in all of Emma while absently nodding to herself. Then, stretching out lazily, almost like a lion, Stress climbed out of her bunk and drew herself up to her feet. Once she was standing, Emma saw that Stress was barely a few inches taller than she was. Her long brown skirt was wrapped around her calves, wrinkled and mussed, but she had it straightened out by the time she was standing right before Emma. "You mind?" she asked.

Emma didn't understand. Before she could say anything either way, Stress reached out her hand and plucked at one particularly choppy piece of Emma's hair. "Tried to pass yourself off as a lad?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"As obvious as the fact that you ain't from around here." Noting Emma's blank look, Stress started to explain. "You didn't flinch. Someone's hand comes flyin' at your face, people 'round here would flinch first, then be gettin' ready to swing back second. Then there's your accent, it ain't nothing like mine." Which was true. Stress had an odd way of speaking: the brash and nasally New York accent intermingled with a thick Irish brogue that sounded both musical and incredibly hard to decipher. "And, o' course, there's your brains."

"Brains?" It didn't seem to Emma, despite all her lessons at school, that she had any brains at all. Worse, she sounded like a parrot, repeating back everything Stress said to her. And why, oh, why was she still _standing_?

"Oh, aye. I've heard stories, Miss Emma. Do you know how many runaway girls try to pass themselves off as laddies by just stickin' their long hair under their caps? Cuttin' your hair, that was a right smart move. I take it you got caught anyway? Probably by the man on Duane, if I'm any judge. He usually sends those girls this way. Not that that means anything—they usually don't last. Are you... you gonna last?"

Emma suspected Stress would've kept right on talking and talking if it wasn't for what happened next. A rough coughing fit overtook the girl, stealing her voice and stealing her breath and keeping her from continuing; it was far more than a simple cough and Emma didn't know what to do. Stress's knees buckled, one hand wrapped around her middle to stop the shakes, the other covering her mouth as if she was trying to push the breath back in.

She stumbled backwards until her back was up against the wooden beam of her bunk. By then the coughs had stopped and she was gulping in great big lungfuls of air, moaning piteously under her breath "Just a simple cough, 's all," she murmured and her voice was thick and gravelly. Giving her head a small, clearing shake, the ends of her wild, bouncy curls flying with the motion, Stress braved one small, weak grin at where Emma stood, stock still and frozen. "Now, what was I sayin'?"

"You asked me if I was going to last here," Emma told her, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject back; she'd never felt so uncomfortable, not since she caught the maid crying over spilt milk in the kitchen. Even worse, she could see that tears were welling up in the corners of Stress's eyes. The older girl wiped them away roughly as she dared Emma to continue.

So she did. "And I have to," she said simply. "I've come all this way. I have to find my brother. I just _have_ to."

"Your brother?" Stress asked, wrapping one slightly trembling hand around the wooden support; just then, she felt like she needed the support more than the top bunk did. "Is that why you've come? To find your brother?"

"Yes. Francis. He's here in this city somewhere and I'm going to be here, too, until I find him again. And that's a promise."

Emma sounded so sure of herself, so determined, that Stress almost believed she meant it. Or, rather, she _meant _it. But that didn't mean that the girl could do it. How could she? There were millions of young boys in the city, countless of them called Francis, and this one girl thought she could find him?

She told Emma as much, her voice a little steadier as she said: "There's thousands of brothers and sisters lost in this city. I'm sorry, all you got is a name? I'm not too sure that'll be enough."

"But I have more than a name. I have his photograph, too," Emma answered insistently.

"Let me see."

Emma nodded. "I have it right here," she said, her fingers already reaching into the back pocket of James O'Halloran's borrowed trousers. She pulled the photograph out and, handling it almost reverentially, she flattened out the crease before showing it to Stress.

It wasn't really a photograph, but a clipping of a photograph from the newspaper and only half of one at that. It was easy to tell that there had been many other people in that picture before it was trimmed down into a small rectangle with feathered edges. One prim, manicured finger pointed right at the smiling boy in the center. "That's him. That's my Francis. I'd know him anywhere... he looks just like our father."

Stress leaned over and, underneath Emma's fingertip, saw a very familiar image. Her brow furrowed as she looked at Emma curiously. "Where did you get that?"

"My aunt had it and I took it," Emma said stubbornly. Her stomach tied itself up into knots at her confession—she owed Aunt Moira quite a lot and knew very well that this was no way to repay her—but she swallowed, trying to quell the terrible guilt that washed over her. She may blame her aunt for many things, but that didn't make her any less grateful for Moira Porter's sacrifices. But it would all be worth it when she found her brother... "I have to find Francis."

"Yeah, but him... he's not a Francis. I know that picture, it was the front page of all the papers over a month ago. That's Jack Kelly, that is."

"You know him?" Emma asked, before, "_Jack_ _Kelly_?"

"Aye, and I guess you could say that I know _of _him. A famous newsie with his picture in the papers, he's too grand to ever notice the likes of a poor working girl like me. He only kisses the _fancy_ girls," Stress added, and there was no denying the hint of bitterness in her tone.

Except Emma was far too excited—too excited, or perhaps a tad bit too naive—to notice. "Why would you call him Jack Kelly?"

"Cause that's his name, ain't it? Jack Kelly, the upstart cowboy who hosted the newsboys' strike. He had half the city standin' still, even old Mr. Matthews had his factory stalled for the afternoon when the newsies stopped sellin' their papers."

"That's him! That's Francis!" She gave a little jump in surprise. Stress knew him—she could _help_ her find him! "I know all about the strike, I read about it!"

"Aye?" Stress said, recovering from the ear-splitting pierce of Emma's excited shriek. "And if you don't mind me askin', how's that?"

"Well," Emma began before she was reminded suddenly just how much her feet were hurting her again. Maybe it hadn't been the best idea to jump up and down so excitedly. Feeling a little sheepish, she gestured at the bunk opposite of where Stress was standing. "First, do you think I could take a seat? It's been ever so long of a day and my feet... well, I should call my blister Sherman, he's big enough to have a name."

Stress let out a small laugh that could've been half chortle, half gag. Either way, her strange eyes lit up. She liked this girl—and anyone who didn't scoot away when they heard her cough, they were all right by her. "Take a seat, missy. The bunks here are free-for-all, first lass gets their choice. You stay in that one," she said decisively. "I won't mind sleepin' near ya."

"Thank you," Emma said graciously. She sank down on the bed—while it was hard, it wasn't as firm of a bunk as she expected and her gratitude near doubled—and sighed as she took her weight off of her aching feet. True, her school shoes were sturdy and sensible but they were certainly not made for miles of aimless walking on cobbles when Emma was used to Erie's dirt roads.

"Don't mention it. Look, there's a nightstand at the foot of the bed if you have anything you need hidin' away." Then, when she saw that Emma came in with nothing but the clothes on her back—and the pouch hanging hidden beneath her shirt, but Stress had no idea about _that—_she pointed at her. "Do you even _have_ anything?"

Emma shook her head. "I didn't really plan this far ahead. I'd... I'd rather hoped I'd be with my brother by now."

"We're goin to have to do something about your clothes. Mr. Matthews won't be hirin' the likes of a girl who runs around in trousers like a boy. I think we'll have hard enough time explain' your short hair, but a bow in the front should take care of that, don't you think?"

"I... Hiring?" The idea was so absurd, she couldn't help herself but squeak and squawk back another parroting reply. "A job... _me_?"

"O' course. How else are you goin' to find a bed and pay for your supper while you're lookin' for that boyo? You've got to have a job, and it just so happens that I can fix you up with one once this cough leaves me be. And not only that," Stress said, moving away from Emma. After rifling in the nightstand at the end of her own bunk, Stress pulled out a long, grey skirt with only a hint of dust at the hem. "This might fit for the time bein'. If it's a little long, just roll it up like your trousers there. It's a start, at least. We can always get some of the other girls to hand over their cast-offs 'til you get on your Shermans. Your feet, I mean, not your blisters, though I can't promise those'll be the last you see."

Emma accepted the skirt from Stress almost hesitantly. It was one thing for the girl to give her a few tips, maybe even help her with her search for Francis, if only because she seemed to know more about Emma Sullivan's' brother than even Emma did. She couldn't understand why someone she just met, a poor, coughing factory girl that had been sent away from her post, why this girl was so eager to help her.

"Thank you," she mumbled. "And don't think I'm not grateful, but why... why are you doing this for me? I can't pay you."

"What for? 'Cause ya need it and where would I be if I didn't have Gypsy and Peg and Pockets," at least, that's what Emma _thought _she said, "to help me out when I first started here? You don't owe me nothin', ya hear?"

And she thought the scowl before made Stress look fierce. With the wild hair sticking out all over, and the daring way she expected Emma to retort back, Emma knew she was more willing to admit to her aunt just how she found out about her brother still living in New York than tell Stress that she felt guilty being in her debt. Swallowing, she nodded. "I... I hear."

"Good." Another mood swing, another flash from angry to exuberant. Stress tucked the skirt neatly in Emma's grasp then sat back down on her own bunk, absently brushing her forgotten book to the side, clasping her hands romantically to her chest. "Aye, and now that that's all settled, please go on and tell me this story of yours. A dashin' brother gone missin', a darin' trip into New York to look for him. Oh, it sounds so rivetin', little lass. Do tell!"

Emma couldn't tell if the older girl—because Stress had to be seventeen at least, she decided, if not older—was putting her on or not. It could've been that Stress was bored and lonely after all her comrades had gone off to their shifts that morning, or perhaps she was genuinely curious as to what had brought Emma to New York City. Either way, this was the first time she had the chance to explain her story to someone who wasn't Mary O'Halloran. And she did realize that she hadn't had the chance to ask Stress for her help just yet but, considering Stress did seem to know more about Francis—_or, what did Stress call him? Jack?_—than Emma, she decided she could always find out what else the girl knew _after_ she shared her story.

"It really _is_ quite the story," Emma told her, feeling a little shy under the weight of Stress's interested, unblinking gaze. "You see, it all began a couple of weeks ago when..."

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: I just want to take a minute to thank everyone who has been reading/reviewing this so far! I think I underestimated how tough it would be to try to get this done so quickly and, while I'm now 25% of the way in, I'm already feeling it - but it is fun, even if I'm not really that much of a chronological writer. I had such a ball, taking Stress (as a character) and really trying to take the characteristics she's always had and really reinvent her in a new storyline. And I know I left this chapter hanging, but we'll start to get some answers next chapter - and the Jack scene actually got pushed back until then :)

14k done so far, 36k to go! And I have all day Sunday to get a lead! (And, finish up the next chapter of Red, too ;D)

- _stress, 07.09.11_


	5. four: erie

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

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><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER FOUR;<strong>

_It all_, as Emma told Stress, _started one afternoon, close to a fortnight ago—_

As the new start of term at school was quickly approaching, things were very busy in the Porter household, especially for Emma. There was so much for her to do before she was ready to return to the Hyde Park school in Boston for her second year and so little time left for her to do it. As Aunt Moira repeatedly told her, there was the train ticket to consider, when she would be leaving Erie, even whether or not she was needed to chaperone her niece on the trip to Boston—to which Emma argued against, pointing out that she was fourteen now and, having had taken the trip with Aunt Moira last year, knew what to do once she boarded the train. Besides, Emma's best girlfriend, Mary, was also going. They could take care of each other, Emma argued. And while Aunt Moira eventually agreed that Emma could be trusted to go alone, that didn't mean that she was going to let the girl go off in any of last year's clothes. Which meant, despite Emma's protests, a visit to the shop was in order.

First things first before they went shopping, though: Aunt Moira had to see how much Emma had grown since the summer before. Emma tried to explain to her aunt that she was no taller or wider than she was last year but Aunt Moira refused to listen; that was one battle Emma didn't win. But, seeing how antsy and restless Emma became after spending the entire morning at the only respectable tailor's in town, having her measurements taken and being poked and prodded with countless pins, Aunt Moira reluctantly allowed Emma to be left in the house with Henry and Mrs. Solomon. Figuring her butler and his wife, a very formidable cook, could keep an eye on Emma, Mrs. Porter went on to take the carriage out alone to buy the rest of the supplies that Emma would need for her next term.

Knowing very well that her shopping trip would take Aunt Moira the whole rest of the afternoon, Emma took advantage of one of the last afternoons she had left that she could spend as freely as she wished. Feeling quite wicked, she snuck into the kitchen and managed to eat a whole slice of coconut pie before Mrs. Solomon discovered her with the fork in one hand and cream on her lip and promptly shooed her out the back door with a none too soft tap of her wooden spoon on Emma's quickly retreating backside. Her indoor fun over, Emma then took it upon herself to see what Mary was doing.

The O'Hallorans were her next door neighbors, despite the fact that there was a bit of a walk that separated both houses. Feeling a little rambunctious, Emma kicked a dirt clod all the way to Mary's and, when Mary came out in answer to Emma's call, the two used the clod to play a quick game of hopscotch in the front. James, having nothing better to do since his friend Billy was home with his parents, he came out to play with the girls and ceremoniously ended the game when one of his big feet came down heavily on the dirt clod and, no matter how hard he searched for a replacement, it didn't live up to Emma and Mary's expectations.

_Because_, cut in Emma in a tone that told Stress that one should never play hopscotch with a less than suitable dirt clod, _if the clod was too soft, it fell apart. If it was too hard, it happened to bounce away and then you were left without a skipping stone again. _And Stress, who had no idea that hopscotch was the game she knew as potsy, just nodded and listened interestedly as Emma kept on chatting away—

James, at twelve years old, was grown up enough to know when his sister and her friend were having a go at him, but he wasn't old enough to know what to do about it. So, sticking his tongue out at the two girls, he went back inside, somehow covered in a lot more dirt than he should have been for only playing a quick and simple game of hopscotch. The one large patch of dirt on his forehead sent Mary and Emma into a dizzying fit of giggles that only grew worse when they heard Mrs. O'Halloran's shrill shouts from inside.

Holding up the skirts of their dresses high as they ran—confronted with Mrs. O'Halloran's yells, they both were conscious of getting dirty themselves—the two girls laughed and scurried behind the O'Hallorans vast house, not stopping until they reached the wooden gazebo that decorated the far end of their property. Mr. O'Halloran knew of the children's propensity to play around the gazebo and, in fair weather, left a worn quilt on the ground for picnics and tea parties and all sorts of games that the girls were too old to play but did regardless because it was expected of them.

Sitting with their skirts spread out underneath them, Mary halfheartedly reached for the teapot and asked Emma if she wanted to have tea. But Emma had a better idea.

"Why don't we start a club?"

Mary was intrigued. "What sort of club?"

"For when we go back to school," Emma said decisively. "We can have our own club for Erie girls, with a special handshake, a language, even, and our own nicknames for each other. Won't that make Cordelia green with envy?"

_Cordelia Miller_, Emma explained to Stress,_ is the headmistress's granddaughter and a right tyrant to any girl younger or poorer or just plain smarter than she is. She bullies the first- and second-year students and gets away with it because Mrs. Miller turns a blind eye to it. A club seemed like a great way to shut her out and make her feel cross. _Stress, who had known a couple of girls like Cordelia Miller in her time, simply nodded and gestured for Emma to continue—

Mary, who had hated Cordelia ever since the girl had grown jealous of Mary's scores and placed the decomposed remains of a dead frog under Mary's pillow, nodded energetically. "Cordelia will go absolutely _puce_ when we tell her we have a club and she can't join!" The two girls spared a moment to share a conspiratorial giggle before Mary, speaking up for the both of them, asked, "So how do we go about starting a club?"

For a moment, Emma was stumped. But only for a moment—if there was one thing Emma Sullivan was good at, it was taking something out of nothing and running with it. She might not know how _exactly_ to go about starting a club but she was too proud to admit that to Mary.

"It's simple," she said, and she huffed in a manner that reminded her of Aunt Moira, "we just sit down and start writing out our rules for our club. We can't be a proper club without rules, can we? That's almost as bad as not coming up with a secret password for keeping Cordelia out of our rooms!"

Mary nodded solemnly in agreement before frowning. "But I didn't bring any paper outside with me. Or a pen, even. Did you?"

Emma shook her head. But then her hazel eyes brightened up. "Aunt Moira must have some, and a pen for each of us, I'd wager. I know where she would keep them, too. Should I run back and get some?"

"Oh, yes," said Mary, clapping her hands eagerly. "The fancier, the better, don't you think, Em?"

Emma nodded in response. "If it's Aunt Moira's, you can be sure it's fancy. You want to come with me?"

From behind them, they could hear a fresh set of shouts. Though they immediately broke out into another round of giggles, the girls heard enough to figure that Mrs. O'Halloran had finished setting the washtub up but was finding it difficult to persuade James to climb inside.

Mary was the first to stifle her girlish laughter. "I better not. I should check on Mama, make sure James isn't making bath time too difficult for her. Call for me when you get back?"

"I won't be too long. Good luck with your brother!"

And Emma ran off, an elfin sort of grin lighting up her face, though she couldn't fight that hint of a wistfulness that made her wish she had a family like Mary's. While she loved her aunt and was grateful for everything Moira did for her, that didn't make the achy memories any easier. She'd had a father once, and a mother like Mrs. O'Halloran, too, she was sure of it. And then there was her brother...

But they were gone, all of them. Emma had to remind herself of that fact, just like she had to do whenever the slightest jealousy caused her to resent her best friend, so that by the time she let herself in through the front door—without her aunt's carriage or the stable boy anywhere in sight, she didn't dare try to slip in through Mrs. Solomon's domain again—she was more focused on making it to her aunt's private study without getting caught by the old fuddy duddy Henry than feeling the least bit green with envy herself over the O'Halloran family.

_Henry Solomon_, Emma interjected then, _is my aunt's butler who looks like he's sixty, acts like he's eighty, but can move like a spry twenty year old if he ever caught me doing something I shouldn't._Stress secretly decided that Emma's Henry seemed a good match for Mrs. Cook—

It was a Wednesday afternoon which, in the Porter house, meant that Henry would be spending most of the day polishing the family silver. Mrs. Solomon should be making supper but Emma wasn't brave enough to check. The maid, a young girl called Sally who was only a few years older than Emma, only came and tidied up in the morning; unlike the Solomons, Sally lived nearby in a small cottage with her mother. Even though she knew there was little chance she would _be_ caught, Emma tiptoed down the hall and slipped into the room, aware that it was against all her aunt's rules to go into this room without permission.

Telling herself she was just borrowing paper that her aunt could very easily spare, Emma hurried to the desk. The center drawer was locked or jammed; either way, she couldn't get it open and disregarded it. She turned her attention to the top drawer on the right. That drawer had business papers in, but boring odds and ends that were nothing like what Emma needed. The next drawer held nothing but Aunt Moira's copy of the Bible. She reached inside the drawer on the left hand-side and huffed. That one had pens and ribbons and stamps but no paper. The next drawer after that was empty. Emma stomped her feet in frustration.

She didn't want to have to go back to Mary's and tell her that she couldn't find paper for their club and, just a little desperate, she tugged on the center drawer again. Maybe she hadn't tried hard enough the first time because, when she tugged, there was a little give. It couldn't be locked—it had to be jammed. Sticking her tongue out as she focused, Emma used both hands to pull again and very nearly fell on her rear when the force of her tug not only pulled the drawer free but sent her reeling backwards.

It was easy to see what had kept the drawer from opening. There in the back, underneath blank paper—ah, so _that's _where it was—and blotting paper and all the other sorts of supplies Aunt Moira needed for penning her letters, there was a large stack of letters tied up hastily with a frayed length of brittle twine. It was a thick stack, some of the letters in envelopes, most of them not, and she could tell from the varying shades of yellows and browns that some of those letters were old.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were sticking up, causing the drawer to jam, Emma might never had noticed them at all. The stack of letters was tucked all the way in the back, almost as if they were hidden there on purpose. To be honest, that's the sort of thought Emma had at once, right before her fingers reached out and, after a bit of work, pried the letters out of their place to get a closer look at them.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, Emma placed the stack on top of her aunt's desk. She bit down on her lip, wondering one last time if she shouldn't just put them back and forget about them, before her hand shot out and quickly undid the knot on the piece of twine keeping the letters together.

The top letter—the most recent one if Emma assumed that they were piled one on top of the next in the order of date received—was, no surprise, address to Mrs. Moira Porter. It was in a crabbed hand that Emma didn't recognize, and the return address was hard to decipher but she was almost certain it said:

_354 Hunter Street  
>Ossining, New York 10562<em>

Here Stress, acting the part of a proper audience, let out an audible gasp. Emma nodded. _I didn't know where it was at first, _she said, almost apologetically, _until I opened the letter. And then I knew, not only where the letter was sent from, but _who _was sending it—_

Emma didn't know anyone anyone who lived in New York anymore. While she remembered that she'd been born and, for the most part, raised in Manhattan herself, the only people she knew were from Erie, unless she counted the girls who boarded up in Boston with her during the school year. But none of them would be writing her aunt... so who could it be.

Well, there was only way to find out.

It was a single sheet of paper covered in the same handwriting that had addressed the envelope. A childlike sense of curiosity trumped her sense of propriety and, quickly in case she heard her aunt's unexpected footsteps down the hall, she read:

_My dearest sister,_

_I know you have asked me repeatedly to stop sending you letters but I can't. Things have taken quite a drastic turn here in the prison, and I'm not sure how much longer I have before they lock us down and I won't be able to see you again. The new warden is, well, I won't say here because my letter's are always monitored, and it's not meant for a lady's eyes to read at any rate. _

_I'm sure you've been expecting this letter, and I'm begging you once again. Please, Moira, if it's the only thing you do for me, let me see my children again. And don't write back telling me to stop asking you about them. I will only send another letter until you finally bring my son and my daughter to see me in this wretched place._

_Your brother, _

_Francis _

Emma was trembling slightly as she folded her father's letter up. It took her a few tries before she could get the letter back into the envelope. When she had, she found her breath was both feverish and quick and she wasn't surprised that her heart was beating so loud that it was pounding in her ears. She felt dizzy.

She knew her father was gone. That's all her aunt had ever said about Francis Sullivan, Sr—he was _gone. _Emma had just turned eight years old when her father disappeared, her mother died and suddenly, thankfully, Aunt Moira swooped down on Emma and rescued her, bringing her to live in the Porter house. All she remembered of her father was a big, booming laugh that came from a twig of a man who, no matter what, smelled like tobacco and Central Park.

Prison. Her father was in prison. And he wanted to see her. Emma's head was spinning at the revelation, barely recognizing that her father also wanted to see his son and that, all along, Aunt Moira must've known; she was too busy thinking about what this hidden letter meant for her and wishing that she hadn't ever went into the desk drawer in the first place. Her eyes strayed over to the stack of letters. Maybe she shouldn't have done it in the first place. Maybe it would've been better if she just pretended that she never saw what was written there. Maybe...

Oh, who was she fooling? Certainly not herself. With fingers that were shaking even more now, she grabbed the next letter if only because she knew she would never forgive herself if she didn't. What if it was another one from her father?

What if her father was writing _her_?

The next one was also white and crisp which, to Emma, meant that it had to be more recent than some of the others; it was postmarked July of 1899, only a few weeks back, which only went to further her point. There was one main difference to the envelope, though: while the first one Emma picked up was addressed to Moira, and so was this one, this second envelope didn't have any return address on it. It was postmarked New York City but that was as far as Emma got before her curiosity won out and she had slipped a folded over sheet of paper out of the envelope.

Tucking the envelope under her arm, Emma opened the piece of paper up so eagerly that the two other sheets that were tucked inside the fold fell free, fluttering to the carpet. Before she picked them up, she looked at the inside of the first sheet and saw written there two lines in a shaky, slanted printing that was much easier to read than her father's chicken scratch:

_I just thought you'd like to know. Your nephew has been quite busy. _

That was it. There was no date, no signature, nothing but those two lines and a reference to a nephew that made Emma's heart start to thud.

_That's when it first struck me_, she said, and Stress was delighted to finally get to the Jack Kelly part of Emma's long tale, _that Francis was somewhere I could find him. The letter was addressed to my aunt Moira and I don't have any other relations, you see. This nephew... it had to be Francis—_

As suddenly excited as she was, Emma's fingers simply stopped working as she bent her knees and lowered herself to the carpet so that she could grab the two other pieces of paper that had fallen. It took her one grab, two, then three before she had the first sheet in her hand. It was thin and inky and, once she recognized it as a newspaper clipping and turned it around, it was a _photograph_.

It was easy for her to tell that this was once a larger shot that had been in a newspaper, one of the plenty New York papers if the postmark was any indication. The edges were slightly feathered but cut neatly as if with a pair of scissors, delicately cutting a square out of a image that left parts of countless others on the ends. But Emma didn't care about who else was in the photograph. Just like whoever had done the cutting and posting of the clipping to her aunt, Emma only had eyes for the cocky, smiling boy posing right in the center.

It may have been close to six years since she saw him last, she might've only been eight years old when her older brother disappeared, leaving her in the care of Aunt Moira, but Emma could never forget the pull of that smile or the confidence that was so inherently _Francis._

It was her brother. There was no doubt about it. The full weight of what that meant hit her and, as she bent to retrieve the second sheet, she nearly stumbled and fell under its force: someone had mailed Aunt Moira a picture of Francis.

_And she didn't tell me_, exploded Emma, and suddenly Stress understood more about Emma's dilemma and reasons for heading to New York than even Emma did. _Aunt Moira knew Francis was here and she never told me—_

And then there was the other sheet when she finally managed her fingers well enough to grasp it. It seemed even smaller than the clipping, though that was because she hadn't noticed at first that it was folded many times over already. Wondering what else this could be—more information on Francis, she desperately hoped—she hurriedly unfolded it, tearing it once before she slowed down and went a little more carefully. In the end, she discovered she was left with a wrinkled, poorly printed copy of something called the _Newsies Banner_. She skimmed through the front story eagerly, wondering what a newsboys' strike in New York had to do with her brother—because, try as she might to get through the articles, her attention kept straying back to the posturing boy in the center of that other image.

She hadn't seen that face in years. And, though she was often reminded of having a brother whenever she watched Mary and James O'Halloran together, Emma had long ago forgotten that her brother had existed once. It was as if, when Aunt Moira rescued her from being abandoned by her entire family, Francis was just as unreachable as her jailed father and her poor deceased father. He abandoned her, and she forgot him. But that didn't mean it didn't sting to see his photograph now.

Francis. He looked just like how she remembered her father to be. Francis... he was in New York. He had to be.

_That's all I could think about then, _confided Emma. _Still, it's all I can think about. I have more family than just my aunt, I can have my brother again and I won't stop at anything to see him again. You do understand, don't you, Stress? _And Stress, who was an only child and had lost both of her parents before she was six, found herself wistfully agreeing with Emma—

She didn't go through any more of the letters. Something told Emma that, if she did, she would be there the whole rest of the afternoon—and greatly increase her risk of being seen—and, as it was, she already had her world shaken twice by learning that, not only did her father want to see her and her brother after all these years, but that Francis was actually still living back in New York.

Emma wasn't sure what else she could bear to learn if she kept digging through her aunt's private letters. No wonder they were hidden.

She didn't want to make it seem like she'd gone through those personal letters; apart from it being quite a rude thing to do, she knew Aunt Moira would have a doozy of a punishment lined up for her if she ever found out. Emma made sure to keep the photograph separate before placing the copy of the _Newsies Banner_inside the short letter then placing it and her father's request on top of the pile. Still shaking slightly, Emma combined all of the letters, the envelopes and the sheaves of paper together as neatly as she could manage then stuck it in its hidden place at the back drawer, exhaling softly when the drawer closed easily.

Then, only just remembering why she had needed to look in her aunt's private drawers in the first place, Emma pulled the drawer back open, grabbed the first pieces of clean stock she found, forgot the pens entirely and fled from the room. She didn't stop running until she was out of the house and far from the aunt she didn't want to face. Only then, when she was closer to the O'Hallorans than the Porter house, did the first seeds of her plan begin to sprout.

_Please, Moira, if it's the only thing you do for me, let me see my children again..._

She couldn't get those words out of her head. Thinking of the photograph she took with her, Francis' face kept rising up in her mind. No wonder her father had wanted to see both of his children. Francis was alive. She needed to find him. She _was_ going to find him. And Mary... Mary O'Halloran was going to have to help her.

_Because,_ Emma said, her voice hoarse and gritty and dry from talking for so long, _if I was going to go to New York... and I knew right away, I was going to have to go to New York, I was going to need Mary. She was going to be the one covering for me in Boston and that was if I could even _get _to New York first... which I did, _she added, since she was sitting in the Bottle Alley Home for Girls_... but that's only because of Mary. _And Stress, who had a best friend back in Far Rockaway, a girl called Grace, knew exactly what Emma meant—

The two girls promptly forgot their childish games in the light of Emma's discovery. Using a pencil that Mary scrounged from her mother's supplies, the two used their impeccable penmanship to fill both sides of every piece of stock paper, helping Emma's fledgling plan blossom and grow. Mary immediately volunteered to cover for Emma when Emma went to New York and Mary went on to Boston alone. It was also her idea to arrange for Emma to borrow a set of James' old clothes. The shears, meanwhile, was a note that Emma came up with all on her own...

The next two weeks seemed to fly by. Emma found it easier to keep her aunt from knowing her true intentions than she expected it to be. Aunt Moira was so busy on her own, making all the final arrangements to get Emma up to school, she barely saw her niece at mealtimes, let alone when there could've been an opportunity for her to question Emma's strange behavior. Because Emma had taken to taking that clipping out when she was alone and staring at the smiling face in the center, absolutely determined that she would find her brother again.

At last there came the day that Aunt Moira rode with her in her fancy carriage to the train station, waiting to see Emma back off to Boston again. And Emma smiled coyly to herself, James O'Halloran's clothes in her bag and that pilfered newspaper clipping she stowed securely in the trouser's back pocket, knowing that she intended to go nowhere near Hyde Park.

* * *

><p>Jack couldn't help but feel a heavy pit in his stomach as he took the stairs two at the time to the bunkroom. Because, as much as he tried to convince himself over the years—as much as he tried to believe he was really Jack Kelly, lonely and alone New York cowboy—he had lied to Kloppman.<p>

He _did _have a family. Or, at least, he'd had one once. A real one, too: mother, daughter, father, son. But that was long ago.

Long before his father got sent to Sing Sing. Long before his mother died.

Long before his sister was gone and Francis—_Jack—_was left on his own.

His father was the first to disappear. There was a fight one night, a couple of dumbasses getting drunk at the pub and thinking they were far manlier with a knife in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other. Young Francis never knew how his father came to be involved, he wasn't there to see the blood-stained shirt or to hear his mama cry when Frank Sullivan came in for the night, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that it was his wrists that were cuffed when the police came round and it was him what was thrown in a cell in Sing Sing for murder.

His mother left him next. He couldn't really blame her. In a tenement like the one they all had shared once, any and all diseases ran rampant and it was only by luck and chance that she came down with consumption and none of her kids did. Even now, more than six years later, Jack still flinched when he heard a deep, throaty cough and he could hear the way his mother went all quiet and weak right before she died. No eleven year old should have to bury his mother but, that last year, the last year the Sullivans were a family, that was exactly what happened.

First, Francis Junior became the man of the house. Then he became the sole provider.

And then his sister simply vanished one day and he was all alone.

_Emma..._

Younger by more than three years, Emma was only seven when their father was thrown in jail. She was near eight when their mother died. She _was _eight when she disappeared. As far as he was concerned, she was _still _eight because, without her there for him to watch her grow, she had forever remained the little girl she was in his memories.

He remembered her, his once-upon-a-time sister. Little Em, with her big doe eyes and the freckles on her cheeks and the high-pitched squeal that could've passed for her laughter. He remember the curls she wore that their mother adored and she hated, and the way she used to follow him around all the time, a shadow in miniature, always playing games. He remembered snowmen in the winter, dirty grey snowmen made of slush and pebbles and one of their father's old caps. And, of course, there were the fireflies that lit up Central Park that they just had to chase every summer.

He remembered the fireflies in the morning, the jam jars emptied but for the bugs and the bits of grass and Emma's insistence they were her pets. No, _more_ than her pets—her little, glowing friends. She always cried when the holes she poked in the lids weren't enough and the fireflies were all dead in a few days and it was up to Jack to take her hand and lead the winding trail through their corner of the park, on the hunt for more.

He remembered it all and then... and then he made himself forget.

Just like they forgot about him.

* * *

><p><em>So that's what they call a family<br>Ain't ya glad you ain't that way?  
>Ain't ya glad you've got a dream called Santa Fe?<em>

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: That whole first part was an interesting sort of flashback for me. Instead of actually having Emma tell her story, I thought I would show it. I hope it wasn't too hard to follow!

21k done so far, 29k to go!

- _stress, 07.13.11_


	6. five: dreams

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER FIVE;<strong>

Emma continued telling her story, remembering the words written by her father that she could not forget, relaying the exact way it felt like her heart was being squeezed to discover that her brother was not only still alive but _living_ in New York City. She went even more hoarse after awhile, unused to speaking for so long—living in Aunt Moira's house, where "speak when you're spoken to" was a firm and fast rule—and thankfully accepted a ladle of cool water that a freckled, red-headed girl with a missing bottom tooth passed her way. It was probably about then that she realized that, some time during her story, a handful of other girls had quietly entered the room and, at Stress's discreet urging, had sat down to listen to the new girl's tale.

In room three, there were four sets of bunks—eight beds in total—and a pair of night tables at the end of each bed; the only other furniture in the room was a set of wash basins at the other end, plus a few chipped, streaky mirrors. By the time Emma was finishing up her story, explaining to everyone present just how she managed to slip into a pair of boy's clothes, why she felt she had to cut off her hair and how she had found her way, first to Duane Street, then to Bottle Alley... by the time she was telling Stress and the others how she came to be lodging among them, all eight beds had been claimed and there were plenty other girls listening, either perched on a night table or just plum sitting on the bunkroom floor.

It wasn't often that the Bottle Alley girls got a new lodger and the strange way Emma looked—because who would _want_ to try to pass themselves off as a boy?—garnered her quite a lot of attention. Another girl, this one with dark brown pigtails that settled on her shoulders, snuck in a couple of rolls, despite Emma being sure that that was against one of Mrs. Cook's rules, and proceeded to share it with a few of the girls, including Emma. She even gave Emma the largest piece of the least stale roll.

None of them were Mary O'Halloran, Emma thought, but, still, she liked these girls. They were much nicer and a lot friendlier than most of the ones she had known at the Hyde Park school and she decided, between going to her Boston boarding school and spending the night in the Bottle Alley Home for Girls, she would take the working girls here, no doubt about.

She still wasn't sure how old Stress was or if she was even the oldest girl in the room; out of the corner of her eye, Emma caught a glimpse of one who looked older, a big girl with dark hair, dark eyes and the most intimidating scowl she'd seen on any girl except for Cordelia Miller whenever she didn't get her way. Either way, there was something about the Irish girl that captivated all the others in the room. When Emma finished her tale, her throat dry and her stomach churning in memory and in guilt for all she'd done, all it took was Stress to stand up and clap her hands and everyone knew that Emma was done talking for the night.

"Come on, girls, storytime's over. Cookie's gonna be comin' up here any minute now to announce light's out and you don't none of ya want to be caught out of your rooms. Especially you, Florence," she said, wagging one finger at the scowling girl in the corner. "I'm sure miss Emma here will have more of her tales for us after shift's end tomorrow. 'Til then, go on, lassies. I'm fair fallin' asleep here meself."

She certainly looked tired. Stress's fair skin seemed even paler in the flickering candlelight and, as the other girls grudgingly followed her led, she coughed once or twice, hiding the sound by covering her mouth with her hand and muffling the rasp, pretending it was just her clearing her throat. One girl, the redhead with the ladle from earlier, she stopped and looked over at Stress questioningly but Stress shook her head and shook her off. The redheaded girl shrugged and, hooking arms with a girl who was as squat and round as the redhead was tall and thin, the two of them walked over to the wash basin to get clean before going to bed.

Emma, seeing that Stress had managed to clear most of the room—whether by her cough or the strength of her personality, Emma wasn't so sure—cleared her throat in turn, trying to get her attention.

Stress raised her eyebrows in response. "Aye?"

"Stress—"

"Ach, ya sound terrible," Stress cut in with a small smile. "All the talkin' you did, Emma, I wouldn't be surprised if your voice was all gone tomorrow. You'll be needin' it, and your strength, too."

Emma waved away Stress's concern. "I'll be fine. I'm more worried about my blisters, if I'm being honest."

"Your Shermans?"

"Yes," agreed Emma, giving herself over to one small smile. "Anyway, I was just wondering... my brother Francis, you seem to know him."

"I told ya, I know a Jack Kelly," Stress interrupted. "If you're insistin' they're one and the same, I'll believe ya, but I can't be so sure myself."

"But they _have_ to be. I just know it. And, well, if you know him—"

"Know of him," Stress corrected with a little choking half-cough.

Emma nodded. "Yes. Still, if you know _of_ him," she said, subconsciously mimicking Stress's emphasis on that one word, "then I was hoping you might be able to help me find him. Or, if you can't help, maybe you could tell me where I could find him. That Mr. Kloppman had never heard of my brother and it was only luck that I found that lodging house in the first place." Emma looked up and over at Stress, her big, brown eyes pleading. "Maybe you could send me somewhere else to searching." And then, because Aunt Moira had instilled in Emma the idea that anyone could be bought for a price, she added, "I'm sure I could pay you for your trouble."

"Ya could?" Stress didn't sound insulted at the prospect. In fact, her strange eyes twinkled mischievously. "And how, might I ask, do ya figure on payin' me when I haven't even brought you down to the factory for work just yet?"

Something warned Emma against revealing the pouch of money she kept slung securely on a string around her neck. "Consider it a promise," she told the other girl in earnest. "I'll give you everything I have when I have some if only you'll help me find my brother. You heard me tell you of my father's letter," and that wasn't even including the others she went back and read before she left, the ones she couldn't find it in her to tell anyone else about. "It's very important that I find Francis and bring him to see my father." _Because_, she thought to herself, _there's not much time left. _"You must understand."

Stress nodded and started to say something that might've been "I do," but, before she could say anything more, her breath caught in her throat, her body lurched and folded in so that she was hugging herself as a fresh round of coughs—not so simple ones, either—racked her whole body. Then she could say _nothing_.

Emma watched her with a panicked air, unsure what to do. But it seemed as if Stress was given to having such fits—most of the other girls edged away, none coming to help—and, after a few tense seconds where the Irish girl gasped for breath and her face started to take on a faint purplish tinge, she managed to catch her breath.

Having hovered at her elbow quite ineffectually, Emma hesitated before asking softly, "Are you all right?" She thought of the ladle full of water from before. "I can get you a drink if you'd like."

Stress stifled her last cough, quickly turning it into a wheeze of a laugh. "I'm fine. Don't mind me, 's just a simple cough." Then, reaching out, she patted Emma's shoulder companionably. "And listen here, my girl: don't you go on worryin' 'bout your brother tonight, either. You've got to be worryin' 'bout yourself now. We'll talk about this again another time ." Gently, she steered an unresisting Emma around so that she was facing the mirrors at the far side of the room. Stress gave her a little push. "Go on, wash up, then lay your head down. I'm gonna be wakin' you up early tomorrow."

"You will?" Maybe there was something to the lilt in Stress's strangely accented voice, or maybe it was because of all the excitement the day had brought her, but Emma felt her eyes drooping all of a sudden. She knew she should get up, her face was just screaming for a splash of clean, cool water, and she was thirsty herself, but the lure of laying her head down on her newly claimed pillow was too strong. She yawned and barely hid it. "What for?"

This time it really was a true laugh that Stress let escape with a tiny, well-meant wink. "Aye and it'd be your first day on the job, won't it? Since you're so keen on makin' your money."

And Emma, both indignant and absolutely terrified at the idea of going to work when she already had plenty of money of her own, did the only thing she could think of to get out of it: pretending she hadn't heard Stress at all, she allowed herself to simply climb into her new bunk instead, closing her eyes and promptly falling asleep without even bothering to change out of her shoes.

The last thing she heard was one more chuckle from Stress—thankfully it wasn't a cough—before she joined the others at the wash basin leaving Emma to her much-needed slumber.

That night Emma dreamed of happy reunions, of a brother who wanted to find her as much as she did him, and, strangely enough, a leprechaun with curly orange hair as wild as Stress's that carried a newspaper and shouted that the rest of her family could be found lurking at the end of the rainbow. And while Emma tried to argue that she hadn't seen any rain, let alone a rainbow, the leprechaun suddenly turned into that dark-haired smelly boy she saw down at the Duane Street lodging house before disappearing in a great big puff of grey cigar smoke. She spent the rest of her dream hunting down this magical rainbow, dragging Francis along, until they two of them found themselves paddling upriver toward Ossining, New York.

Not surprising, earning a wage or going to work didn't figure into her dreams at all.

* * *

><p>Nightmares plagued Jack all that night.<p>

The most frequent one, the one that he remembered so vividly when he woke up on his top bunk in the lodging house the next morning... it was a nightmare that was both mundane and familiar and all the more stomach churning. And that was because it wasn't a nightmare so much as a flicker of the past re-running one of the worst times of his life over and over and _over _again—

_They took his mother's body away for a pine box the afternoon after Francis found her, cold and stiff and just _lying _there in the pile of dirty laundry and rags that had been her bed those last few weeks; when the coughs started and the aches followed, even the landlord of their one room home wouldn't let them stay. So Margaret Sullivan died in a forgotten corner of a basement slum, and only her boy's desperation kept the scourge of the tenement from stealing anything the poor dead woman had worth taking._

_There was a man, old Mr. Mahoney, who took pity on Francis and Emma and, rather than throw the woman's body out to lie unbidden in the street, used a few friends that he had to arrange for the pine box and the pauper's burial that came with it. Margaret Sullivan was buried like a proper Catholic instead of being left to the dogs and, as payment, Mr. Mahoney earned a young runner in Francis._

_Before his father was taken away, Frank Sullivan—Francis Sullivan, Sr.—did what he could to teach his boy things he wouldn't learn in a classroom. He taught his son that it wasn't right to hit a lady, though a fella who was looking at your girl strange might deserve a wallop. He taught his son that starving was the worst way to go and, no matter what he had to do, it was worth it to keep the aching pangs of a hungry belly at bay. He taught his son that your pride and your honor and your name were the only real things you got, the things no one could take from you. They were priceless and the only thing that shouldn't be bought or sold._

_And, most of all, he taught young Francis that it didn't serve to be in anybody's debt. As long as you were, someone else had a hold over you—they'd bought you, all right. It was then up to you to do whatever it took to buy yourself back, and sometimes, Frank said with his scoundrel's grin, the price was doubled to get yourself out of that debt._

_For Mr. Mahoney, the price for his intervention and Margaret Sullivan's burial was that Francis worked for him for nothing except the scraps of food the man provided so that Francis could make sure his little sister didn't go hungry. Francis learned all about New York's streets that way, tramping up and down the alleys and the avenues, delivering messages to people all over the city. And while Francis was willing to wager that Mr. Mahoney was an honest man—though that didn't mean nothing when he looked at his father's fate—many of his acquaintances weren't. That was how Francis furthered his education; that was how he learned all about New York's seedy underbelly._

_The work took its toll on him. Before long, Francis was going on longer trips to earn more credit with Mr. Mahoney. Not much longer after that, the old man, pleased at Francis' daring nerve and undeniable charm, was paying him a few pennies per trip, having already decided that Francis had earned his favor three times over in the months since he'd been playing runner. Taking pity on the poor kid and his little sister had been the best thing he'd ever done and he even arranged for a mother of five who shared the basement with them to watch over Emma while Francis was out doing Mr. Mahoney's errands. _

_Mrs. O'Leary already had five of her own, she said, and what was one more? Besides, it was time Emma had someone else to rely on that wasn't her brother. Poor dear, she confided in old Mrs. Rickels, she hadn't been the same since her mother coughed herself to death..._

_In the weeks and months that followed, Francis had grown cocky with his success. Days would go by at a time while he tramped around New York, Brooklyn, the Bronx, the Bowery... everywhere, passing along messages, delivering packages, doing everything and anything that might earn him a little more so he could get Emma out of that slum. His pockets jangling with mostly pennies and a few nickels, he barely saw his sister, telling himself over and over that he was doing this for her. He even missed celebrating her eighth birthday because he was learning to shoot dice with a scrawny, blue-eyed boy in the back streets of Brooklyn._

_And then came the day she disappeared—_

_Francis knew he was due back. Emma was sniffling when he saw her last, upset that he wasn't there to see her on her birthday. It was the first one since their father left—worse, it was the first birthday since their mother _died_—and to have a birthday without a single present, a slice of cake or her brother staying with her... it was too much for the girl. And though Francis brought her back a ragtag, second-hand doll he picked up in a small shop in Brooklyn, he felt awful when he saw that Emma was crying. So he promised her a real lunch, a lunch out at a diner on the lower east side he'd found called Tibby's, as soon as he came back from Mr. Mahoney's latest job for him._

_But, drunk on the responsibility and the freedom that came with working for a man like Mr. Mahoney, Francis took longer than he was supposed to. He knew he was due back, he was probably a day overdue, but he expected to find Emma waiting for him, holding tightly to that rag doll she wouldn't be separated from._

_Except she wasn't. _

_He arrived back at the tenement earlier in the afternoon than he had a habit of doing, especially since he'd taken to visiting his father's old friend Medda Larkson at her vaudeville joint. In fact, he came back specifically to bring Emma to that lunch he promised her, excited to take his sister out into the fresh air and sunlight; on his last trip back, he'd noticed that Emma had become too pale and withdrawn, living underground. But, when he let himself into the basement and searched through the bodies and the filth and the rags that were littered everywhere, there was no sign of Emma. _

_The closest thing he found was Mrs. O'Leary lying in a heap, asleep, with three of her children napping at her side, and another one at her breast. Nothing he could do would wake the woman and, leaning down, he caught the hint of alcohol on her breath. He was just about desperate enough to nudge the woman in the side with his boot when something off to her left caught his eye and he felt his stomach drop._

_Emma's rag doll. The gift he'd given to her two days after she turned eight, the same doll she hadn't let go of in the weeks since, it was just laying there. That's when Francis Sullivan knew, as certain as he knew that this was the last time he would ever be returning to this hellhole, that his sister was gone. And there was no way he could get her back._

_Emma was gone. She had abandoned him. And he... he had failed her._

_Still, that didn't stop him from picking up the rag doll and shaking it violently for answers, all the while as his mind yelled at him: _This was where Emma had been—_should_ be! This was where I left her! It was only a few days, damn it! Mrs. O'Leary was supposed to be checking up on her, I was supposed to meet her here to take her to Tibby's! I _remembered_—

He remembered waking up that morning, breathing heavily and nodding absently when Mush caught him starting awake and said he had a hard time sleeping himself when it was so humid out. But that wasn't it. That wasn't it, at all. The humid, thick air was unpleasant but it wasn't the reason why Jack woke up, out of breath, panicking and afraid.

That was the nightmare's fault. He hadn't dreamed of finding Emma missing in _forever_.

For the last six years, ever since he was eleven—nearly twelve—and suddenly all alone in the world, Jack had forced himself to forget about the _what-ifs_ and the _might-have-beens_. What if his father wasn't jailed? What if his mother didn't die? What if Emma didn't disappear? What if he wasn't _abandoned_? He might've been just like Davey and Les and Sarah, another picture perfect, happy family. He might've been free of New York.

But he wasn't.

He didn't have all that; he hadn't for six long years. So he invented a new family, a mother and a father who wanted to be free forever with their boy in a place called Santa Fe. He took all of his inspiration from his Western Jim pamphlet, the last gift his mother had ever given him. She had swapped it with the man who owned the bookstore for a few day's worth of washed laundry and gave it to young Francis on his eleventh birthday—the last birthday he actually celebrated, if you could count a nickel day-old stale cake and pamphlet celebrating. He always did and so had Emma.

Maybe it was because he was a city boy, born and bred, and the closest to the wilderness he'd ever been was running through the woods and bushes and flowers of Central Park, chasing after Emma, chasing after those damn fireflies, but Jack—back when he was still scrawny Francis—had always been fascinated by cowboys. He dreamed of being free of the oppressive city life, going where the sun always shined, and it certainly explained away his hatred of the basement slum he spent one terrible year of his life in. As soon as he could escape it, he did, and while it meant nothing at first since he was all alone, he was still free.

Well, free until a foolish kid called Francis Sullivan got caught stealing a loaf of bread and ended up in the Refuge; he'd landed in the Refuge, a jail for kids, just like his father had been thrown into Sing Sing. But he got out, he escaped from Randall's Island just like he escaped from his family's tenement, and, with his new family, he invented a new persona.

When he finally realized that it was up to him and no one else to make sure he survived, when Francis finally gave up on being a Sullivan and became a Kelly instead, he could be anyone he wanted to be. So he used the rest of the money Mr. Mahoney had given him on a battered, old second-hand cowboy hat that would eventually give him his nickname.

Which was how Francis Sullivan became Jack Kelly became Cowboy. He had never looked back once.

Damn it, he wasn't about to start _now_.

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: I was just wondering if this quick update schedule is throwing everyone off. Even though I'm really trying to finish this by the July 31 deadline, I'm thinking maybe posting it all in that time span is a little daunting for any prospective readers. So, what do you think? Should I keep posting it as it's finished or take my time, spread out the posting and have a better chance of editing it completely once August rears its head? Let me know, please :)

Almost halfway there! 24k down, 26k to go!

- _stress, 07.15.11_


	7. six: telegrams

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER SIX;<strong>

As was her custom, Mrs. Moira Porter took her lunch in the dining room and, when she was done, went to the parlor for the rest of the afternoon. She was prepared to greet and receive any guests that might want to visit with her and, if not, she was in the middle of re-reading the Bible and wouldn't mind sitting by herself and reading a few good verses.

She wasn't always given to such a life of luxury. As a girl, Moira Sullivan had had to work long hours for a small wage, if only to provide for her mother, her father and her much younger brother. The factory work was tedious yet dangerous, and Moira sat at a machine, working the knobs and the levers and, because of her small hands, she was expected to reach in among the gears whenever there was a jam—which was precisely how she lost the smallest finger on her right hand. And though she wore a white glove now to hide the unsightly stump, the injury had done nothing for her then except cost her her work.

Well, no. That wasn't true. In fact, looking back on it, that horrific injury was probably the best thing that could've happened to her. Because she couldn't work in the textile factory any longer, Moira was reduced to selling half-wilted flowers on the corner where his family's tenement stood. Which was how, one lovely spring day, she sold a daisy to the middle-aged gentleman visiting New York who eventually became first her mentor, then her husband.

No, Moira Sullivan hadn't been a rich girl but Moira Porter... now that her dear husband William was gone, all she had left were the eighteen years they had together, plus his house and his money and his staff to remind her of him. William Porter's family had made their money generations back, at the beginning of the century; William was the last in the line and, when he met sixteen-year-old Moira, fated to be a bachelor for the rest of his years. He took a fancy to Moira's strong personality and her willingness to do anything proper in order to provide for her family and his visit to Manhattan turned into a six year trip. After they were wed, he even went so far as to move her parents to Pennsylvania with them when they finally left New York.

William was more than willing to bring Francis along, too, but Moira's brother—twelve years old when Moira got married at the age of twenty-two—had taken up with the Bowery Boys and refused to leave the city no matter how much Moira tried to persuade him and their mother cried. Well, Mrs. Porter sniffed, her nose in her Bible and Emma's hoodlum father on her mind, at least one good thing had come of her younger brother's pigheadedness.

Mr. and Mrs. Porter had never been blessed with any children. If there was anything that her brother had that made Mrs. Porter—who, in William Porter's large family home, had infinitely _more—_envious, it was his family. Frank Sullivan had managed to marry above him, a good girl named Margaret Kelly, and they had two children. The boy, named Francis Junior after his father, was, in Mrs. Porter's opinion, as much of a waste as his jailbird father. And then there was Emma...

She sighed and, placing her gilded bookmark back in its place, set her Bible aside. Those first few days after Emma went back to school were always the toughest. The house seemed so much quieter without her, and mealtimes were so much lonelier. It always reminded Mrs. Porter of how desolate the household had been following Mr. Porter's death the year before she rescued Emma from that terrible slum in New York.

Just the memory of the stench and the squalor that Mrs. Porter had found Emma wallowing in as an eight-year-old child, it was enough to make the woman lift her glasses before pinching her nose with her gloved fingers and breathe shallowly in for a few moments. She had thought she escaped such cramped, close living quarters when William whisked (most) of her family away to the clean air of Pennsylvania. Thankfully, she was able to save Emma from a dreadful fate.

And by now her young ward was safely settled in at the Hyde Park boarding school in Boston, a premier Catholic institution that would not only spare Emma from having to work long, hard hours slaving away in a factory, but would also turn her into a gentlewoman, prepared to be the perfect bride for a suitable husband once her schooling was complete. That was enough to turn the corners of Mrs. Porter's prim mouth upwards in a slight, satisfied smile. She would do anything to make sure Emma was pointed in the right direction.

She just wondered when the silly girl would drop the Sullivan name and finally agree to become Emma Porter. How else could she stand to inherit the Porter house and everything that came with it unless she did? It was such a pity the child didn't understand, she just—

"Madam?"

Henry's somber voice was so grave, so dreadfully dismal, it always reminded her of a funeral dirge. No matter where in the house he was, if he projected it loud enough, she could always hear it.

Mrs. Porter removed her spectacles next, placing them neatly on top of her Bible. They were only for reading and, as she looked around the parlor for her tall, looming butler, she didn't need them. "Yes, Henry?" she called, unable to find him.

And then, all of a sudden, there he was. Tall and broad, in a stark contrast to his short, round wife, Henry Solomon could've been a young seventy or an old fifty. Even as mistress of the house, Mrs. Porter had never had cause to ask; as far as she could remember, Henry had looked the same as now when she first moved into this house nearly twenty-five years ago. His grey hair was the color of dirty snow but it covered his entire head, save for one balding patch in the back that didn't get any large despite the passing years. His eyes were a hard blue color that reminded her of the sky during roaring summertime thunderstorms. There were hardly any wrinkles on his face and for one good reason: Henry never smiled. He seemed to think a frown was a proper expression for a servant and Mrs. Porter, too used to it to notice, found herself agreeing at times.

His head was partly bowed as he shuffled into the parlor, his permanent frown in place. There was a familiar yellow sheaf in his hand, one that he held up as he rumbled, "There was a delivery boy calling for you at the side door." Mrs. Porter nodded. Too right, too, for the delivery boy to use the servant's entrance at the side. Henry held up the yellow paper. "He brought this."

It was familiar but, without her reading glasses, she could hardly read any of what it said at so far of a distance. She gestured at it impatiently. "Yes? What is it?"

"It's a telegram, madam. Would you like me to read it to you?"

Mrs. Porter held out her hand royally. "Hand it here, please."

Henry did just what he was told. Mrs. Porter accepted the telegram, wondering where it could've come from, eager to slip her reading spectacles back on so that she could see it. Once they were in place, and she taken the time to make sure they were perched smartly on the end of her nose, she read to herself:

**AUGUST 26, 1899**

**TELEGRAM**

**TO MRS. WILLIAM PORTER AT 23 MOCKINGBIRD LANE, ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA**

**EMMA SULLIVAN NOT RECEIVED AT SCHOOL STOP CONDUCTOR SAYS NOT ON TRAIN STOP ARE WE STILL EXPECTING THIS TERM QUERY**

**RESPECTFULLY,**

**MS. ADELAIDE MILLER, HEADMISTRESS  
>HYDE PARK SCHOOL<strong>

Mrs. Porter read the lines twice, three times and had no trouble understanding what they meant, though for all the money the tuition for that school cost, this Miller woman could've spared the expense to show some concern that Emma was missing. Slowly removing her glasses and then pinching the bridge of her nose again, she swallowed back her annoyed sigh. Not in front of the help.

William always warned her about minding her temper. While he found it thrilling and rewarding at most times, enjoying that headstrong manner of hers that made her such an interesting companion and a wonderful mistress for the Porter house, he often chided her when she _did _lose it. Rather than get angry, he would say with a knowing smile, do something about it. That's how his grandfather had made all of his money during the construction of the Erie Canal. That was how he managed to land Moira's hand in marriage when, year after year, she turned him down for being so much older.

He was right, as ever. Mrs. Porter shook the telegram out then folded it over and slipped the offending letter inside the cover of her Bible. Why be angry that the Hyde Park school had temporarily misplaced her niece? Why be angry that Emma was missing? Anger wasn't going to solve this problem. Panicking about it wouldn't work, either. There had to be a reasonable explanation about all this—and it would be Moira Porter who got to the bottom of it.

"Henry?"

The butler hadn't moved from his position directly in front of her chair. "Yes, madam?"

"Is the boy still here?"

"No, madam. He was paid well for his errand and then sent back to the telegraph office."

"Then would you be so kind as to have the carriage brought around? I have a telegram or two of my own that I would like to send."

Henry bowed his head, revealing the small balding patch on the back. "At once."

As Henry left the parlor, Mrs. Porter tucked her Bible under arm and followed after him. But rather than head out front to wait for the carriage, she went instead straight to her study. There would be paper to be found in her desk, and a pen, and she would take the time to prepare her response to Mrs. Miller's message before she went down to the telegram office herself. Because, while she wasn't so frugal as to count the letters in her reply, it was wonton waste to write long willy-nilly telegrams just because she _could_.

The study was probably one of the least used rooms in the whole house. It had been a library once, when her husband was still alive, but Mrs. Porter hadn't kept it up; instead, she brought in an antique desk she bought in town and sat down at it to write her letters. There were still a few mahogany bookshelves standing against three of the walls, each and every one haphazardly dusted courtesy of Sally's slapdash way of tidying up. The desk was set right by the open bay window so that she could take advantage of the sunlight while she could.

There was still a weak stream of light splashing throw the window, illuminating the desktop. Mrs. Porter took her seat and, after grabbing one of her pens from the right-hand side drawer, pulled the front drawer out, looking for a piece of paper or some stock for her to begin to draft her reply. However, before she grabbed any paper from the front compartment, something about the array caught her attention. She paused and, narrowing her shrewd gaze, it took her a moment to discover what it was.

_Her letters. _

Her special letters, the private letters she'd kept and hid and told herself that she would share with Emma one day, they'd been moved. Oh, it wasn't so easy to notice—even Mrs. Porter took a few curious moments before it struck her. Someone had taken great care to keep them in order, the most recent letters on top in their crisp, white envelopes, the older ones—dingy yellows, crackled browns—hidden at the bottom. But the letters weren't stacked as evenly as they should be, the twine was loose, and they were shoved further in the back than she had ever kept them.

Someone had been reading her letters. Someone... a seed of suspicion had planted itself into her mind but, before it could blossom into full-blown certainty, she turned in her seat and, lifting her voice, called out, "Henry?"

More often than not, it worked both ways: all Mrs. Porter had to do was call for Henry and her butler was there. He had hearing like bat and took his steps like a cat, arriving behind her with a quickness and such silence that was surprising to her. Sometimes she suspected that he had been standing there all along.

"Yes, madam?"

Mrs. Porter kept the drawer open, the letters disheveled and obviously in the wrong place. She gestured at them, keeping as calm as ever. "You haven't had any cause to straighten any of these papers, have you?"

"Certainly not!" Henry sounded scandalized. "Not your private papers, madam. I would never dare!"

Mrs. Porter tapped the gloved fingers of her good hand absently against the desktop. "Mmm... yes, that's what I thought." Henry rarely entered her study, regarding it as a private female sort of place for his mistress. With that reasoning, he left this room and Mrs. Porter's grand bedroom to the maid to dust and straighten.

"Would you want I have a word with young Sally?"

"No... no, that wouldn't be necessary. Tell me, Henry: is the carriage here? I feel that I would rather send those telegrams as soon as I can."

Not that that was quite necessary. Already she could see the response she would receive, almost as if they were sitting right in front of her. Mrs. Miller wouldn't have any further information regarding Emma's whereabouts, unless she took aside Mary O'Halloran and got the information out of Emma's girlfriend. By then it would pointless, once Mrs. Porter sent the second telegram she aimed to send.

Because suddenly she knew, as certain as she knew that her younger brother was a no-good scoundrel who was rotting away in Sing Sing, where her young ward had gone.

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: Figured it was about time we got to meet the infamous Aunt Moira ;) P.S. Researching the proper format for a telegram was actually really interesting!

Been a little bit of a slow go, but I'm still trucking. 27k down, 23k to go!

- _stress, 07.19.11_


	8. seven: irish

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER SEVEN;<strong>

True to her word, the next morning Stress woke up the rest of the girls bright and early—and that included Emma Sullivan.

Emma jerked stupidly when Stress shook her by the shoulder and told her, in a voice too chipper for the morning, to "rise and shine!" Stress moved on to wake the next girl in the line when Emma's hazel eyes reluctantly opened; Emma did her best to rub the rest of the sleep away, using the few seconds that followed to figure out where she was. When she did, it took all she could not to gasp out loud.

It was like that time Mary and their schoolmate Louise had dumped a bucket of ice water over Emma's head to wake her up during Easter holiday last year, the shock was as sudden to see where she was sleeping now as it was to wake up then, ice cubes slipping down her nightgown; the swell of pride and sudden relief both nearly took her breath away. Emma had done it, it wasn't just a dream. She had _made_ it. She was in New York—lodging in a Bottle Alley boardinghouse for young girls, to be exact. Emma was one step closer to finding her brother.

She could _do _it.

There was a smile on her face then and a spring in her step as she climbed out of her borrowed bunk—at least, there _was_ a spring for the first two steps before the blisters from the day before started to scream at her and she ended up hobbling the rest of the way to the night table at the end of her bunk. Maybe, she mused with a newfound grimace as she leaned with most of her weight against the table, it hadn't been such a good idea to fall asleep in her shoes.

Her hand was resting on something quite soft. Putting her weight gingerly back on her feet, Emma looked at what she was leaning on. The long, grey skirt that Stress had given her was folded neatly on top of the table, with a simple white linen blouse placed beside it; luckily, the unfamiliar blouse looked like it might just fit Emma better than the skirt would. Still, she knew she had fallen asleep with the skirt rolled up next to her pillow—she didn't have any idea _where_ the shirt had come from—and she figured if she had Stress to thank for finding them both there.

Having spent the last year sharing a room in a boarding school full of girls, Emma was not worried about changing from James O'Halloran's borrowed clothes into the ladylike clothing that was set out for her with room three still abuzz with many other girls getting ready for the day. She quickly traded the oversized trousers for a skirt that was too long—Stress wasn't much taller than Emma but she obviously wore her skirts down past her ankles—and made sure to roll up the waistband so that she could walk without tripping.

Changing into the new blouse was a little trickier. On the pretense that she was shy, she turned her back on the others, removing James' shirt until she was in the underclothes she hadn't been able to bear leaving behind with her traveling dress; it was only a little wistfully that she thought of her trunk and her luggage that had got on ahead to Boston without her. Emma tucked her money pouch under her slip, trying her best to hide the slight bulge, then pulled on the linen blouse. Though it was a good fit, she was grateful to find that it was still a little loose in the top and when she had finally done up all of the buttons, there was no sign that she was wearing her life savings on a string around her neck.

By the time Emma was completely dressed, more than half of the room was cleared out; there was no sign of Stress anywhere. Not quite daring to hope that Stress had forgotten about her promise to help Emma find a job, she decided it was about time to take her turn at the washing station. Even if she got out of looking for work and could, instead, look for her brother, she didn't think she could stand another minute without freshening up. It was just a pity she hadn't brought any of her own perfume with her, but how could she have? Making sure everyone knew she was really a girl hadn't been part of the plan. And her favorite perfume, a fourteenth birthday gift from Aunt Moira, was also stowed away in her trunk. She just hoped Mary didn't borrow it while she was away.

There was only one other girl standing by the mirrors and the steel tub that was set up on the other side of the room. It was the big girl, the stocky silent one with twin plaits who had sat in the corner of the room last night—Emma remembered with a start that she was called Florence—who was standing next to the wash basin, a dirty cream-colored rag hanging idly in her thick hand. And she was scowling. Emma dared a quick look over her shoulder, wondering what Florence could be seeing that made her lips purse and her nose wrinkle that way before Emma realized with a jolt that it was _her_.

Glancing back, she took a better look at Florence. For some reason, she was familiar in a way that Emma couldn't place and not like how she could've sworn she had seen the dark-haired, cigar-smoking boy from yesterday before. No, she was almost positive that she'd never met Florence before last night but there was something about her... she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but Emma recognized her somehow.

The scowl on Florence's face only deepened when Emma moved towards her. Up close, Emma could see that Florence had mud brown eyes that seemed darker as the were focused intently on her. There was no way she could deny that that look of intense dislike was being directed right at her.

"Do... do I have something on my face?" Emma rubbed her cheek with a dirty hand and remembered just how filthy she was. She could see that her hands were covered in caked-on dirt; her skin crawled to be clean. Suddenly, that was the more pressing concern. She slipped past Florence and the wash basin and, standing on her tiptoes, tried to get a good look in one of the mirrors.

There was a row of three tiny square mirrors side by side on the wall and she peered into the closest one, scrutinizing her reflection. It was worse than she thought. For the first time, she could see how choppy and uneven her short hair was and grimaced; rubbing her dirty fingers through it, trying to fluff up the strands a little, she wondered if perhaps she should've been so rash after all. Her normally pale face was coated with a light sheen of dirt that wasn't as bad as her hands but _still_. Aunt Moira would've had a fit to see her looking that way!

She moved to the water spout on the other end of the wash basin and started to pump vigorously. There wouldn't be enough time for a proper bath but, with a little bit of soap and some rough scrubbing, she could be looking much more presentable for her first day of work.

_Work..._ Emma gulped. She wasn't so naïve that she didn't know that there were plenty of children out there who had to miss out on school so that they could make enough money to survive. If it wasn't for living with Aunt Moira in the Porter house, she could have been one of them. But she wasn't—and she just couldn't wrap her head around the idea that, rather than sitting down to another of Sister Bernadette's lectures on proper penmanship, she was preparing herself to become an actual, honest to goodness _laborer_.

If the idea didn't make her feel so queasy, it just might've been a tad bit thrilling.

Her thoughts so wound up in doing what she had to until she found Francis, Emma washed her hands thoroughly first, then splashed her face and scrubbed at her cheeks, almost immediately forgetting the nasty look Florence had given her. She did her best to rinse the soap off but it was a harsher grade than Aunt Moira used, darn near lye, and she shrieked when the water streamed into her eyes, leaving the excess soap to sting.

She tried to pretend she didn't hear the rough, harsh laughter that came from behind her. Forgotten or not, it seemed as if Florence was still standing there.

Emma didn't have a towel. She hadn't thought to bring one with her and, now that she was momentarily blinded by the soap and the water, she couldn't find one by feel. Using what she had at hand—or, rather, leg—she lifted her skirt up and, too uncomfortable to care, she used the grey fabric to wipe at her eyes. When she was done, when she could see again without feeling the sting, she opened her eyes to tentatively find Florence looking down on her, partly amused at Emma's discomfort and wearing an expression of disapproval that Emma just couldn't understand.

"You look like a drowned rat," Florence said snidely, her pug nose wrinkling again when she saw that Emma was looking at her again.

It was that expression that made Emma even more certain that she knew Florence, knew her or someone like her. And then it hit her—_Cordelia! That's who she reminds me of!_

There was only way to deal with a bullying girl like Cordelia Miller and this Florence, and this time she didn't have Mary O'Halloran to pull her hand and drag her away from a prospective fight. No, if she wanted her journey and her plight to be taken seriously, she would have to stand up for herself. She would have to stand up to Florence.

Which was precisely what she was going to do.

Drawing herself up to her full height despite the pressure it put on her sore feet—and despite the fact that Florence was still more than a head taller—Emma jutted her chin out and said in a royal manner that was reminiscent of her aunt, "You could've lent me your rag. I might not have gotten so wet if you had."

Florence didn't bat any eyelash. "Why, so you'se can get your black Irish dirt on it?"

Emma's cheeks started to heat up at once and she prayed that the scrubbing left her skin pink and raw, hiding the fact that Florence's comment had made her so flustered. She swallowed back an angry retort, using all of her lessons in etiquette to keep her voice calm as she retorted: "There's plenty of dirt on it already."

"Yeah, but it's good, clean dirt," Florence teased meanly, wagging her rag around, over Emma's head and just out of her reach. "Not _your_ kind, _Sullivan_."

She should've known it had something to do with her name. Sullivan was a good Irish name, but it was more than that to Emma. It was the last thing she had to remind herself who she'd been once, where she'd come from. Aunt Moira had been trying to convince her to sever her ties with her old family for years, trying to get Emma to switch her name to Porter, but Emma had always stubbornly refused. And here was some poor girl telling her she was somehow less than her because she was Irish.

Puffing out her chest in angry pride, Emma was just about ready to open her mouth and use a bit of language that would have Aunt Moira washing her mouth out with soap if she knew when someone else came bounding over to the pair of them, calling out—

"Say, what's goin' on here?"

_Stress_.

Emma didn't want to snitch. Even when Mrs. Miller threatened her whole floor with scrubbing down the kitchens if no one confessed to the dead frogs under Cordelia's pillow, Emma refused to tell on Mary—and even if it wasn't Mary who had done it, she knew she would've kept the secret. It seemed even more important not to tattle on Florence now. Who would ever respect her if she went running to an older girl anytime she was teased?

"Nothing," she said quickly before Florence could say anything first.

"Really?" Stress wasn't buying it. "'Cause I thought I heard something about Irish dirt comin' from here and I thought to meself, but I'm not even at the wash basin yet. I still have my thick Irish hair to wrangle first."

As if making a point, she waved the pale yellow scarf she was attempting to use to tame her wild mane of light brown curls. Reaching behind her, she tied the scarf expertly, poking any stray curls into place, doing so as she meaningfully shot Florence a warning look that told them both that she'd heard even more of the conversation than just that last part. Stress was still smiling but there was an edge like steel to that smile; her eyes went hard and cold, staring straight at Florence, wordlessly telling the girl how close she'd come to making Stress lose that smile.

Amazingly, Florence seemed cowed by it all. She looked down, pulling on the end of one of her braids. When she spoke again, she actually sounded humbled. "Ah, you know I wasn't meanin' you, Stress."

"Oh, then who _was _ya meanin'?"

Emma didn't have to be a snitch. Florence was more than willing to rat herself out. She pointed one damning finger right at Emma. "She's the one who said she was called Sullivan. And she ain't from around here. Listen to the way she talks, like she's better than us all." Florence stuck her nose in the air. "But she's not. Look at her: she's just another lost, little Irish girl. You should know all about them, Stress."

"Why?" Stress asked, her eyes twinkling in a warning that Florence was too bold to heed. "Because I _am_ one?"

"You said it, not me." At least Florence had the foresight to sound apologetic.

"I think that'll be enough of that, Flo," Stress said lightly. "Come on, why don't ya leave the lass alone? We're all friendly here at Bottle Alley, eh?"

Florence shrugged and said nothing else in response. Instead, in a most _un_friendly manner, she brushed past Emma to rinse her rag in the wash basin and then, half-heartedly swiping away at a dirt streak under her own chin, left the room with a slight huff.

That left Stress and Emma standing alone by the wash basins and, in fact, alone in the whole of room three. But that didn't mean that the walls didn't have ears...

"Nice one, stayin' quiet," Stress said under her breath, nodding in approval. "You're right, no one likes a snitch. You learn quick." She playfully bumped her shoulder against Emma's. "Brains, what did I tell ya? You'll fit right in here, you'll see."

Emma had meant to stay quiet; she was afraid her voice might crack if she didn't. Except it was so difficult not to speak up when Stress spoke so optimistically like that. "Not if they all think the way she did. No one will want me here." Having someone who had just met her dislike so heartily for so stupid of a reason, that stung even worse that the soap in her eyes. "I've _never_ thought I was better than anyone."

"Neither do I. That's just Flo bein' Flo. Don't mind her," Stress said, patting the ends of her curls, assuring they were firmly in place, "she's just sore 'cause she's been sweet on one of the boys who sells papers down by Central Park. He's too dim to notice her attempts at wooin' and, when he ignores her, it's hell for the rest of us. Ain't nothin' personal. Chin up, Emma. Here, I brought you this."

Stress had a bow in her hand and she was holding it out to Emma. It was small bow, white and, thankfully, quite clean. Grateful to have something else to focus on, Emma took it and then looked questioningly over at Stress.

"I found it for you," Stress explained. "Just place it in the front of your hair, it'll help Mr. Matthews in case he gets stumped."

Emma did as she was told, fastening the white bow right in the front. "Like this?"

"Perfect."

"What if your Mr. Matthews is, er, stumped?" Maybe her father was forever on her mind, her father and his fate and the lingering suspicion that there was more about his incarceration than she knew, but Emma feared the same drastic consequence every time she did something she knew she shouldn't. "I won't go to prison for gettin' caught, will I?"

Stress laughed. "Girls don't go to Sing Sing because they cut their hair and pulled on a pair of trousers, Em. All that'll happen is Mr. Matthews says he doesn't have room for ya and, if he says that, I'll just tell 'im he's lyin'. We all know that he loses a different girl each week, some gettin' married, others havin' wee ones of their own, and then there's the ones who'd rather make money the old-fashioned way without ever havin' to climb off their backs. So don't you worry, lassie. You just follow me, I'll make sure ya get a job."

Having said that, Stress took a step back and ran her bright, brilliant eyes over Emma. She nodded, taking in the borrowed clothes that fit the girl better than those trousers she'd been wearing the night before and the white bow that offset the blouse Pepper let Emma have. She was looking as ladylike as Stress could hope to make her. "I think you're all set," she pronounced with a satisfied grin. "Come now. You ready, Em?"

Her stomach just about in her shoes, Emma wished she could tell the truth: no, no she wasn't ready, not one bit. Even if, she thought, it was a little nice to have Stress call her _Em_. It almost made her feel like she belonged already. But did belonging really mean going out and going to _work_?

She thought of her pouch of money and wondered if she should mention it. She'd slept with it under her pillow the night before and managed it slip it under her clothes as soon as she woke up, while most of the other girls were gathered around the wash basin and the mirrors. She certainly couldn't explain why she didn't want to work without explaining that she had money and Emma still wasn't comfortable enough sharing that part of the truth with the other girls.

"Yes," she gulped. She hadn't felt this nervous since Sister Mary Agatha found out she'd been faking her constellation charts. "I'm ready."

And with a laugh that was even more chipper than her bright morning greeting, Stress waited for Emma to grudgingly trudge forward before leaving room three empty at last.

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: Well, I have good news and, well, other news. Good news: I should still be able to hit 50,000 words by July 31 :) Other news: this totally will not be completed by then - it's gonna be a bit longer than 50,000 words by the time its done :P I spent all day yesterday setting up the last part (because during Camp NaNoWriMo I just can't write in order, heh) and there will be a conclusion... eventually. I'll tell you, though: I love that part. Now I just got to get to it...

33k down, 17k to go!

- _stress, 07.22.11_


	9. eight: david

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER EIGHT; <strong>

The Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory was located not too far from Bottle Alley, about a half mile walk away from Chatham Square. The trip over didn't take half as long as Emma had expected—or wished it would.

Before they left the Girls' Home, Stress had snuck into the sick bay and came back with a poultice that looked like mashed bread, smelled like the herbs Mrs. Solomon liked to cook with, and did wonders for the throbbing blisters that covered the backs of both of Emma's heels. In fact, without the pain to focus on, all Emma had to think about was what was waiting for her when she followed Stress and other girls down to start their work day and, sooner than she liked, arrived at the factory.

It was a big, brown building that didn't look any different from the plenty of big, brown buildings standing tall next to it—except for the fact that almost all of the employees filing inside of the Mitchell building were girls, some fourteen like Emma, but most of them Stress's age or older. It was, Emma thought as she lingered on the edge of the crowd, no wonder that Stress had insisted on the bow.

Despite noticing Emma's reluctance, Stress marched her right inside of the factory and, after proving she could take a deep breath without wheezing once or issuing even the slightest of coughs, the foreman let Stress go on to the lines of sewing machines that took up most of the middle of the first floor. Grabbing Emma by the collar of the blouse she borrowed from Pepper, the friendly girl with the red hair,__Stress dragged the younger girl behind her and pointedly sat her at an empty machine across the way from where Stress normally sat. She pretended she couldn't hear Emma's protests and, as Stress folded her patched skirt underneath her and took her seat, she waved away any and all of Emma's repeated worries that she didn't know what this contraption did, let alone how to _use _it.

"Just sit there and make it look like ya know what you're doin', right?" Stress was whispering and Emma correctly realized that idle chatter amongst the workers was not only frowned upon but forbidden. She looked down and made a great display of turning her machine on and, before anyone noticed, flicked the switch on Emma's for her. "You let me take care of Mr. Matthews."

And Emma, who had nothing better that she could do, simply sat there and eyed the monstrous machine skeptically, praying that Stress knew what she was doing.

Mr. Matthews, it turned out, was the foreman, a tiny man with thinning dark hair and a pair of deep-set, narrowed eyes. It was his job to watch over the operators at the machines, the female garment workers who sewed the shirtwaists before passing them along to the young girls who made up the cutting department in the far corner of the first floor. As such, he went up and down the aisles, nodding to himself as he watched over the girls before leaning over to check a seam or spur the workers on a little faster.

The foreman was forever making his rounds, his eyes on everything, rarely blinking as he took in the whole of the first floor. On his third trip past their row, he stopped suddenly, as if noticing for the first time that Emma was sitting there. Though, she figured, it wasn't her sitting there that had caught his attention in the first place. The fact that she was still working helplessly on her first shirtwaist was a much more pressing concern.

He stopped right behind her, hovering over her head as, even when he was standing, he wasn't that much taller than Emma. Emma sat up straight on her stool, trying not to show how nervous she was. She could sense him standing only a step or two past her but refused to look up at him. Maybe if she ignored him, he would disappear.

"And who, may I ask, are _you_?"

Then again, maybe not.

Stress had been busy on her sewing, operating the machine expertly, cranking out shirtwaist after shirtwaist without ever once looking across at Emma. Or, at least, that's what Emma had thought. But when Mr. Matthews stopped and demanded an answer from the girl, Stress's head jerked up, paying more attention to the scene in front of her than the shirt she was supposed to be sewing.

Then, seeing that Emma was too frightened to answer, Stress did exactly what she told Emma she would—she drew the foreman's attention over to her. "That's young Emma Sullivan, Mr. Matthews," she told the foreman, oblivious to his slight cringe when he heard her voice.

One thing for sure: Mr. Matthews hadn't missed the Irish girl when he forcefully sent her home for her cough yesterday morning. The way she spoke so boldly and out of turn at times made him twitch a little and if it wasn't for the fact that she had a good eye for a seam and a quick way with the peddle, he would've turned her out long ago.

Lifting his head and asking for Stress's silence, he then tapped Emma on her shoulder more roughly than he needed to. "Is that your name? Miss Sullivan? Hmm?"

"Yes, sir," trilled Emma nervously as, gulping, she swiveled around so that she was staring up at him. His eyes were so sunken in on his skeleton-like face, she didn't know where to look and settled for focusing on his neck. It was loose, like chicken skin, and she watched it jiggle as he shook his head slowly.

Mr. Matthews didn't look convinced. "And you're a young lady?"

"She's wearin' a bow," Stress pointed out.

"I can see that, Miss Rhian." Mr. Matthews pursed his lips, then, doing his best to ignore Stress again, turned his attention back on Emma. "Your hair is quite short, Miss Sullivan. Why?" He sniffed. "It better not be because of lice. I won't be having that on my floor."

"It's not lice," Stress cut in before Emma—who had turned red at the insult and had just about found her voice in order to offer him her retort—said something that got her sent off the floor. "There was an accident. Her long hair got caught in her machine and the only way to keep her from gettin' scalped was to cut it all off. Aye and that's why it's so short, it is."

"I don't remember any accidents." He narrowed his eyes even more so—they nearly disappeared in the folds of his weathered face—and scratched the back of his thin, wobbly neck, obviously trying to think back to such an accident happening at the Mitchell factory. There was a touch of disapproval coloring his frown, almost as if he suspected Stress of making it up—which, of course, she _had_, but there was no way for Mr. Matthews to know that.

"It was her last position, Mr. Matthews," Stress added hurriedly. "That's how she's come to work at Mitchell's. Right, Emma?" And she kicked Emma in the shin with the tip of her shoe, signaling that now was the time for her to speak up.

"_Ow_! I mean, yes... yes, that's right."

Mr. Matthews was good at his job, watching over the young garment workers, making sure the Mitchell factory got the most out of their laborers during the ten hour—and sometimes longer—work day. He could hear a pin dropping from across the room, he always knew when one of the girls had disappeared off to the water closet and was gone for longer than was considered necessary. What he wasn't so good at was determining when someone might be pulling the wool over his eyes. The way he saw it, the garment workers, the operators, the collars, the cutters, even the piece workers... they were all tools that kept the Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory running. Miss Sullivan was just another one of those such tools and it was only his concern to make sure she wasn't faulty.

He sniffed again. "We don't tolerate none of that tomfoolery, Miss Sullivan. Don't let anything like that happen here."

"I won't, sir," promised Emma.

Mr. Matthews was just about to walk away—his sharp hearing had picked up the sounds of muttering over the hum of the sewing machines a row over—but, just when Emma was about to exhale her relief and maybe chance rubbing her palm against her sore shin, the foreman turned back around. Fifteen years on the job was enough to hone some sort of instinct and regardless of what he'd been told, the young girl didn't look like she belonged at the sewing machine, fitting the shirtwaists.

For one thing, she seemed quite young; Mr. Mitchell, though he often turned a blind eye to what happened in the factory, tried to keep anyone under sixteen off the operating line. And small and nimble fingers, while excellent for doing the operating, could be just as necessary at another important task.

"Maybe... maybe it would be better off if we kept you away from the machines and the other operators." He crooked his finger and gestured for the girl to come with him. "Come quick, Miss Sullivan, follow me."

Emma shot a panicked look Stress's way but the older girl just shrugged; there was nothing she could do and they both knew that. So with a racing heart and a bundle of nerves in the pit of her stomach, she followed the factory foreman to the far corner where a handful of girls were sitting on a threadbare rug, stacks and stacks of folded shirtwaists besides them. Each one had a pair of scissors in her hand and they were dutifully cutting loose threads off of the fitted shirtwaists before folding the material neatly and reaching for another one. Emma couldn't help but notice that, with the approach of the foreman, the workers started to pick up the pace a little.

"I'm placing you with the cutters for now, Miss Sullivan," Mr. Matthews said and he gestured for two of the girls to move closer together to leave room for Emma. "We'll provide your first pair of scissors but if you break them, you'll be responsible for bringing in your own. If you cut more than just thread, the shirtwaist comes out of your pay. Do you understand?"

And Emma, who could hardly believe that young girls got paid real wages just to cut the ends of loose trails of thread, simply nodded her response and took her seat. She accepted the flimsy scissors one of the other girls handed her and, following their lead, reached for her first shirtwaist. Now _that, _she mused, was a job that she could just about manage to do.

After all—and Emma thought of her new hairstyle—she was pretty handy with shears.

–

"So, ya wouldn't've believed it, I mean, _I _almost didn't believe it and I was there, right? But there she stood, a gal dressed like a boy, sure as I was standin' there with her. Davey, I'd heard of girls choppin' off their hair and tryin' to pass themselves off as boys, but I'd never seen one. Did you ever?"

David Jacobs knew better than to blow his kid brother off by not answering that question for the countless time already. Because Les, for the last day and a half now, had been telling a tale about a queer girl who was trying to pretend that she was a boy. The one time David lost sight of his brother when they were supposed to be selling the evening edition of the paper, and Les came home with a whopper of a story that he just wouldn't stop bringing up.

Oh, well. He only had himself to blame.

"No, Les," he answered, providing the correct answer to his cue.

"And then there was the way she _spit_," Les went on to add, chuckling as he skipped ahead. "I think even _Sarah_ coulda spit better than that."

"Hm... I don't think Sarah has ever spit in her life," David mused.

"That's my point!" Les stopped and turned around so that he was facing his older brother. He puffed his chest out a little. "And, ya know, I let her think she fooled me, too. Poor girl, I don't know what she was thinkin', but I helped her out. I mean, gosh! Can ya imagine Sarah doin' something so silly, cuttin' her hair like that. Her hair was shorter than _mine_, Davey."

"That's nice, Les."

"I don't even think I told you about the way she tried to talk—" David had to swallow his groan because, by then, he'd already heard that part of story, and Les's pitiful attempt at an imitation, at least four times "—like a chipmunk's squeak at first, I don't know, but it was the funniest thing I ever heard, I'm telling you—"

Yes, David thought to himself, _that_ was exactly the problem. And they hadn't even gotten to the distribution center yet!

As Les continued prattling on and on and David only paid enough attention to make sure his little brother didn't get so involved in his tale that he wandered off the path and got himself hurt, David was trying to find something to get Les's mind off of the strange girl he had met. There was no way he could just ask Les to change the subject, it would hurt only his feelings and until something more exciting happened, he knew Les would be stuck on it. It was, he realized, like the strike all over again.

In fact, it seemed to David that this was the first time since early July when Les _wasn't_ talking about the strike. David almost missed it.

That wasn't the only thing he almost missed. Glancing up, he looked past Les and saw a very familiar figure heading down the street towards them. The red neckerchief tied smartly around his neck, an unlit cigarette hanging absently off of his bottom lip as, his head bowed, he searched his pockets for something, David might not have noticed Jack out for an afternoon stroll before the evening edition if it wasn't for that same red neckerchief and the frayed rope Jack insisted on wearing as a belt.

There was only one way for David to step out from underneath his brother's endless tales. _Forgive me, Jack_, he thought before turning a winning smile on his little brother. "Hey, Les? Have you told Jack about your friend yet?"

Les's eyes lit up like a firework. Jack Kelly was his hero and he had been since Jack took him on as a selling partner and, in one whirlwind afternoon that David's mother would have kittens over if she knew the truth, Les took his first sip of beer, earned his first quarter, learned how to trick a customer into buying a sympathy pape and got his first eyeful of a vaudeville show over at Irving Hall.

"Jack? You see him, Davey? Where is he?"

David pointed. "Isn't that him right there?"

Les had already spotted him. "Jack! Hey, Cowboy!" He left David behind, performing his awkward sort of run and skip in order to reach Jack as quickly as possible. David allowed himself a small smile, never losing Les—or Jack—from his sights, taking his time strolling towards his friend so that, by the time he met Jack, Les had already launched into his story.

Jack had managed to light his cigarette before Les ambushed him. The cigarette was perched in the corner of his mouth, his lips curved up in a wry smile as he nodded in answer to everything Les was telling him so energetically. But there was a distracted look in his brown eyes, a lost yet guarded expression that flickered into an expectation when he noticed David at last—because, wherever Les was, David was sure to follow—before it fell back into place.

Any guilt, or any humor, David might've felt for turning Les on Jack disappeared. An unsettled feeling took up root in David's stomach; always something of a worrywart, he had the sudden sinking suspicion that something was going on with Jack Kelly that had nothing to do with the girl Les was still going on about.

Which only goes to show that, even with a fancy education and a way with words, you could still be wrong sometimes—

David had to admit that, up close, Jack looked pretty terrible. His hair, which was usually greasy, seemed even slicker than normal and was plastered to his forehead in clumps. His brown eyes were bloodshot and watery; the bags underneath made his eyes so sunken in that it was almost a skull looking back at David, not a boy. There was a slightly noticeable growth of stubble on his chin. Not only did it look like he was running on empty, but it was obvious Jack hadn't bothered to shave and splash his face at the sink that morning. In fact, David had the sinking suspicion that he probably hadn't gotten a good night's sleep last night, either.

"Hey, Cowboy? Where were ya goin'?" Les asked suddenly, hero worship evident on his young face. "You gonna sell papes with me and Davey today? Huh?"

Les's voice drew David's attention from his own thoughts as quickly as Les had asked his question of Jack; it was just the question he'd wanted to ask himself. David cocked his ear, almost as curious as Les to hear Jack's answer.

It had been a couple of days since they had last sold papers together. Things were more different now than even as close to a month ago, when Mr. Jacobs suffered an injury in the factory he worked at and lost his job because of it. All three Jacobs children—Les, David and their old sister Sarah—had found ways to help support their family. While Sarah tatted lace and made deliveries, selling her wares, David and Les took to selling papers, morning _and_ evening, anything to bring the pennies in.

Now, though, now that Mr. Jacobs' arm had healed enough for him to find new work, Mrs. Jacobs had put her foot down: she didn't want her children running amok through the city any longer. She was proud of David for his role in the strike and had taken to Jack as a potential suitor for her only daughter as best as could be expected considering he was an Irish Catholic boy, but that didn't mean she liked the idea of David and Les warming to the newsboy's way of life. They would be going back to school when lessons started up again and would only be allowed to sell the evening edition of the paper when they did. Why not start straight away?

So David and Les were only allowed to head down to the distribution center and wait for the circulation bell during the afternoon. Jack, who didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing when he sold his papers, seemed to do most of it in the morning. By the evening edition he was long gone, either selling on his own again or off doing who knew what. David had caught up with Jack once since Mrs. Jacobs put her foot down about morning selling and Jack had agreed that it would do them both some good to sell on their own for a couple of days. David and Les really didn't need the money; Jack did. Might as well make the best of the summer sales while he could.

Maybe, David thought, all that time apart wasn't as good for Jack as he thought it might be. It had been his idea, after all—though he never would dare tell it to Sarah—but having a family, while great at first, was too stifling for Jack and David wasn't so naïve as to not notice that; sometimes he worried that Jack blamed them for holding him back when he could've been out West already. At the best of times, Jack could barely stand to tell David the truth, though he knew better than to lie to his friend, especially after the whole Francis Sullivan mess at Judge E.A. Monahan's bench during the strike. So, even though Jack said it was for the money, David suspected there was something else going on in addition to that.

He wondered how he would ever get Jack to tell him what it was.

As it turned out, for once luck really was on his side. Just like when he cast his gaze around for something to save him from Les's repeated story, a quick glance around the busy street gave David another excuse. Reaching out, he tapped Les lightly on the shoulder, interrupting him in the middle of asking Jack if he ever caught Sarah spitting. Les seemed a little put-out that David wanted his attention but his face lit up at what David asked next—

"Les, ain't that Boots over there?"

There was a dark-skinned boy bent down at the side of the road not too far ahead, hiking up his socks before he picked up his stack of papers and tucked them under his arm. He hadn't seen any of the other boys yet, his eyes were drawn to a particularly luscious looking apple sitting on the edge of the fruit vendor's stall, and suddenly David saw his chance.

Slipping two of his fingers into his pocket, he pulled out a dime and handed it to his brother. "Why don't you go over there and buy an apple or two for you both?"

Les, eager to see one of his newsie pals, took the dime, promised Jack he'd finish telling him his story later, then loped off to greet Boots.

That left Jack and David standing on the side of the street alone. And, where there had been that easy sense of camaraderie they developed during the Newsboys' Strike, there were a few awkward moments while Jack kept his thoughts to himself, his eyes drawn down to the cobbles, and David simply furrowed his brow.

At last, David worked up a friendly smile. "It's been a couple of days, Jack. It's good to see you again."

"A coupla days already, Dave? Didn't I just see ya yesterday?" Jack had forgotten about his cigarette. The tip had burned down, leaving close to half an inch of ash hanging there. He flicked it absently and slipped it back between his lips. His eyes were still turned down. "Yeah, I'm sure I saw your mug only yesterday."

David's friendly smile wavered, replaced by a concerned frown. "I brought Les to the distribution center to sell the evening edition yesterday. We didn't see you there."

"Oh. Maybe the day before then."

David shook his head. "Sarah's been asking after you."

"I know," Jack muttered and, glancing up, David could see he looked guilty. What did _that_ mean? "I've been... I've been meanin' to stop by." When was the last time Jack had stopped by the Jacobs' apartment? Last week? The week before? He shrugged. "How's your pops?"

"Papa? He's been doing better." Then, slightly distracted, David called after Les, "Don't go near that horse with your apple, Les! I'm not bringing you back home with any less than ten fingers!"

Les's childish reply was lost in the hustle and bustle of another Manhattan afternoon. Something told David, though, from the twinkle in his kid brother's dark eyes and the way Boots snickered into his fist, that it was probably a good thing that he hadn't heard what Les had said. David sighed. Sometimes he wondered if Jack Kelly really was such a good role model for Les.

Jack—who had made out Les's response and was damn glad that David's blank expression meant he hadn't—wasn't eager to drop the subject if only because he knew how easy it would be for their conversation to stray back to Sarah... or something worse. Rubbing the back of his sweaty neck with his hand, he got David's attention again by asking, "How's his new job?" Talking about Mr. Jacobs, that was safe enough.

"He likes it. Working with figures is a lot safer than factory work," David pointed out. "Mama's pleased that there's hardly any chance he'll come home with his arm in a sling again."

"Unless some dumbass goes on and stabs him in the arm with a pen or something, right, Dave?"

"I... I guess so." David's blue eyes watched every move his brother made as Les and Boots, each chomping on a juicy apple, thankfully backing away from the horse's bit, sat down at the edge of the alleyway and started up an impromptu game of marbles. He let out a sigh of relief. Les could hardly get into any trouble playing marbles now, could he? Praying that he wouldn't, David said quite firmly, "Don't think I didn't notice you changed the subject, Jack."

"What do you mean?"

"Sarah."

_Sarah_... David's sister. Pretty, sweet, caring Sarah Jacobs. Brave enough to stand up to the Delancey brothers on her own, and foolish enough to actually care about him. Jack had never thought he would find someone as perfect as Sarah and, sometimes, he knew that that was the problem. Street rats like Jack didn't get _perfect_. Hell, they barely got _good enough_. He was afraid he would screw it up; he was afraid he would prove himself to be as worthless as Snyder always told him he was. And that wasn't all.

More than anything, Jack was terrified that he would become as big as a mistake as his old man, rotting away in Sing Sing on some stupid, trumped up charge. With that kind of Sullivan blood running through his veins, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was a new man—the he was _Jack Kelly_, damn it!—he couldn't help but wait for the moment he would hurt Sarah and lose David and Les as a result.

Which was why he was staying away. Especially after yesterday, the memory of his cursed name and the nightmares of the first person he failed—the terrible reminders of his lost sister—Jack wanted nothing more than to forget his old family and his new family and go about it alone. Just like he had done since he was eleven. Just like he would've done if it wasn't for the first time he ran into David and Les outside of the distribution center's gates and a chance partnership led to his meeting the rest of the Jacobs.

"Yeah," Jack sighed. "Sarah." He took a long drag on his cigarette, using the rest of it up before tossing it away. "I miss her."

"Just because we're not selling together all the time, that doesn't mean you have to stop seeing her. Even Mama was pleased that you were walking out with Sarah."

"It's not that, Dave. It's got nothing to do with Sarah, ya got my word on that." Because it had everything to do with _him._

"Then what is it?" David persisted. As if Jack would expect anything less than that from someone Spot Conlon had dubbed "the Walking Mouth".

Jack didn't know how to explain to David how conflicted he'd become in the weeks and weeks following the strike. He was used to being a loner with the ever-changing faces in the lodging house as his only family. Before the strike, Jack knew he was coming to the end of his time as a newsie and, while he would miss some of the fellas—Blink, Mush, Race and Crutchy to name a few—and Kloppman, too, when it was his time, he knew he could walk away without looking over his shoulder... just like he'd done the last time he left that basement slum he'd lived in with Emma. But how could he walk away from David? Or Les? Or Sarah... He tried once. Got in the governor's carriage and everything, but what had that gotten him? A round trip right back to the distribution center.

He didn't know how to explain that, after his mother and his father and even his sister abandoned him, he spent his life waiting for the next person to disappear—or, barring that, he always made sure to get out first. He didn't know how to explain that, with summer ending and autumn quickly approaching, that that was precisely what he was trying to do. Jack didn't know how to explain _anything, _so he didn't say anything at all.

He didn't have to.

"Is something wrong, Jack? Is there something going on that you want to tell me?" Worry lines creased David's forehead; his blue eyes darkened as he peered at his friend. "I'm a good listener. Whatever is on your mind, I'm here. I hope you know that."

And despite not wanting to be caught lying to David again, he shook his head. "Don't worry 'bout me, Davey. There ain't nothin' on my mind except for supper." And then, because he really did miss David's family, and would only be punishing himself even more by staying away, he asked, "You think your ma would mind another for soup?"

Because, with a full belly and a little rest, maybe the all-too-real nightmares won't be able to find him and haunt his dreams again.

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: Ah, that was a nice long chapter :) I wanted to show Emma's start at work _and_ finally get another peek at what Jack was up to - and I managed to get it done in one. Considering the next chapter, it was necessary... and it might just be as long, too!

I hope it was interesting, though - not only what's going on with Jack for the moment (and his mindset before the fic started, ie: Sarah), but the shirtwaist factory. I spent forever last night researching factories, factory work, and shirtwaist factories in particular. Ever get interested in child labor at the run of the century? Read about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It's fascinating, and it hit its 100th year since this year.

37k down, 13k to go!

- _stress, 07.24.11_


	10. nine: shears

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

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><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER NINE;<strong>

It was a tough first few days at the factory. Having a job and going to work was a lot harder than Emma thought it would be and she found herself so absorbed by it, it was as if that was all there was to living: getting up, spending mindless hours performing the same repetitive task, drudging back to the Girls' Home and blissfully falling back asleep... only to have to get up shortly and do it all over again.

She never thought she would miss the Hyde Park school but, well... she was even beginning to look forward to Sister Mary Agatha's lessons. At least the nun never hovered over her, waiting for her to make a single peep out of turn just so she could send the girl home without any pay for the work she'd done that day. No, with Sister Mary Agatha, the worst she could expect was a sharp rap against her knuckles courtesy of the Sister's ruler whenever Emma chatted with Mary O'Halloran during lessons. She would much rather a bruised knuckle than the worry Mr. Matthew's shadow inspired any time he came to check on the cutters, keeping them hard at work, no matter how long the hours were.

And for Emma, more spoiled by her aunt's station than would've ever admitted and unused to any labor at all, the hours seemed even longer.

In fact, she was so tired after those first two days, she barely remembered that she wasn't in New York to live as an orphaned street girl but, instead, to look for her brother. Her newly adopted shift at the Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory was supposed to be ten hours during the week, but if the orders were backed up, Stress confided, Mr. Mitchell wouldn't let any of the girls go a minute before twelve hours—Emma's first day there, she had to spend _fourteen_ hours sitting on the rug on the floor, cutting, cutting, _cutting_.

It wasn't a difficult job. The repeated action was both tedious and monotonous but it wasn't hard for her to do and, for that, Emma was grateful. Though Aunt Moira always wore gloves on her hands, even in the heat of the summer, Emma had seen her aunt's injured hand on more than one occasion and believed Sally's hushed story that it was from a machine just like the one Stress operated. It was one thing for her to go back to Erie without her hair—she wasn't going to go back without a finger.

Still, fourteen hours left her sore from sitting still and the blisters that formed on the smooth underside of her fingers were even larger than the ones on her heels; only the thought of another poultice in her future kept her from crying out loud. The Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory broke for a small lunch but there was no supper and she found herself following Stress straight back to the Bottle Alley Home for Girls where Mrs. Cook, the matron, and Mrs. Addiman, the real cook, were serving a supper meal of a hearty stew and fresh bread.

Stress spotted Emma two nickels—one for lodging, one for her meal—and if it wasn't for Florence sitting at the end of the same table, sneaking dirty looks whenever Stress lowered her head to raise her wooden spoon to her mouth, Emma would've confessed that she had the money herself. Instead, she just kept track of what others gave her. Like that boy Les, she would make sure to reward those who helped her when she finally found her brother.

Her second day was no better but, now that she knew what to expect, it was no worse.

Mr. Matthews looked at her strangely her second day, almost as if he couldn't remember her ever having been at the factory before, but he said nothing. She took her spot on the rug, pulled out the scissors that Mr. Matthews gave her yesterday and, following the lead of the other young cutters, started cutting again.

The day was shorter, only twelve hours instead of fourteen, and Emma was relieved when the whistle blew and the girls were allowed to leave. Stress brought her to a bakery at the end of the street and treated Emma to a fresh sticky bun which ended up more on her face than in her mouth. Laughing, they joined the other girls, heading back to Bottle Alley for supper where Emma couldn't help but wonder if Florence was making some headway with the young man she was after because, for the first time since Emma arrived at the boardinghouse, Florence smiled at her. Then again, she later thought as she lay awake in the same bunk as last night, it might have been because of the sticky bun that had dirtied her face until she washed up.

The third day, though... that was _rough_.

Emma woke up later than she should've—in fact, most of the girls in room three were quite close to oversleeping and if it wasn't for Mrs. Cook checking on her lodgers like she did every morning, Mr. Mitchell's factory would've been short a good deal of his garment workers. The reason why was clear almost immediately.

Stress wasn't there.

Her bunk wasn't made, the mess of rumpled sheets and a squashed pillow a telling sign that the Irish girl had been lying there up until recently; in fact, the crumpled blanket strewn at the foot of her bunk suggested a quick retreat. There was no sign of Stress in room three other than that, no wild, tangled curls, no yellow scarf, nothing.

And, as Emma listened to Mrs. Cook's shouts and started to get ready as fast as she could, she quickly discovered that Stress wasn't the only thing that should've been in room three but wasn't—

_Her white bow was missing._

After washing up the night before and combing her short hair with a brush that Florence had kindly allowed her to use, Emma put her day clothes and her bow in the top drawer of her night table. But when she jumped out of bed and went to pull on her clothes as quickly as she could, there was no doubt that her bow was missing. She checked the other drawers to make sure she hadn't misplaced it, then looked under her bunk and the next two bunks over, just in case. It wasn't there. It wasn't _anywhere_.

If it wasn't for the fact that Florence had seemingly decided that Emma was worth a little friendliness last night, she would've suspected that she had something to do with the theft of her bow. Then, because she couldn't count the amount of times Cordelia Miller up at Hyde Park School had pretended to be her chum to only go on and make life even more miserable for Emma and Mary O'Halloran, she decided that there was a good chance that Florence was still picking on her.

She would've confronted Florence except that, in the mad dash to get ready, Florence—who had stayed over in room three last night, bumping Pepper out to stay with her pal Lois in room two—got up and got out before Emma had even noticed that her bow was gone. Instead, she started checking around her pillow, under her bunk again, everywhere she could and couldn't find her bow anywhere. Then again, that could've also been because there wasn't much time for her to look.

Stress arrived in room three not too long after Mrs. Cook, wiping her mouth with her hand, her skin even paler than usual. There were dark circles under her eyes that spoke of a long, sleepless night and as she faced the nearly empty bunk room, she tried to regain some of her clout.

"Rise and shine, lassies," she called, sounding dead on her feet herself. "Up and at 'em, eh? Before Mr. Mitchell throws us all on our rumps. Let's go!"

Stress looked so bad that none of the girls had the heart to point out that if she'd woken them all up like she normally did, well, then they wouldn't have had to worry about being late.

* * *

><p>Emma Sullivan was the newest employee at the Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory. As such, it wasn't so unusual that the foreman didn't remember her face or was a little wary of her production. During her first two shifts, she caught sight of him lurking in the cutter's corner more than his treks up and down the operators line. However, by her third day, she had hoped he would have enough confidence that she could manage cutting the tail-end of the loose threads without his supervision.<p>

She was wrong.

No more than ten minutes into her shift, Mr. Matthews appeared at the edge of the rug. At first she wondered if he was there to scold her for coming late—even though she and the other stragglers from Bottle Alley had just made it before the opening bell rang—but he didn't say anything about that. Instead, he leaned over and tapped her on the shoulder. "Young man, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Despite it being much easier to manage and, in a way, it felt like the ultimate act of rebellion against her aunt and all her stuffy rules, Emma was really beginning to regret cutting all of her hair off. She turned and looked up at Mr. Matthews, showing him her face. "It's me, Mr. Matthews. Emma Sullivan. I'm a young lady."

Mr. Matthews pursed his lips and squinted. He nodded. "Very well then. Carry on."

Emma sighed in relief and simply reached for her next shirtwaist, praying that that was the last time she had to explain her short haircut away to the factory foreman.

After Mr. Matthews' visit, she followed the lead set by her fellow neighbors on the rug and, keeping her head down, kept a steady stream of cutting in an attempt not to catch the foreman's attention again. Which was easier than she expected, too, but for all the wrong reasons.

The coughs started softly, one every few minutes so that the sound of the sewing machines drowned them out at first. Stress even managed to swallow a couple, ducking her head whenever they came over her so that she could hide them from the floor foreman. However, after a few hours into the work day, such a terrible fit hit her that, no matter how hard she tried, the coughs exploded out of her, stealing her breath and stealing the attention of nearly everyone on the floor.

Including Mr. Matthews. He appeared at her side immediately, almost as if he had been hovering behind Stress the entire time.

"Miss Rhian," he said, and though he spoke in a flat, no-nonsense sort of voice, it seemed to carry over the factory din, "what have I told you about coming to the factory _ill_?"

"But I ain't ill, sir, 's just a simple cough," argued Stress. "'S nothin', really."

Mr. Matthews looked down on her with such authority and dislike that she knew it was hopeless. And she was right. A short man, Mr. Matthews pulled himself up to his full height, puffing out his chest as he pointed across the floor toward the exit. "As long as I'm in charge of this floor, I'll not have it. You can just leave, and this time, don't come back until you are _cured_."

"But, Mr. Matthews—"

"Go!"

Reluctantly, Stress got up from her seat and, in the middle of her sewing, reached over and turned her machine off. And still the foreman wasn't done.

"And that'll be the whole day's wages taken from your pay for wasting Mr. Mitchell's time with your folly."

Stress was horrified. She'd already been sitting at her machine for three hours, doing as much work as she could in that time. She _needed_ that money. "But—"

"_And_ you can count yourself fortunate if there is still a place for you when you return, Miss Rhian." He frowned. "_If_ you return."

Defeated and alone, despite the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes on her, Stress just nodded. "Aye, Mr. Matthews. Thank you, sir." Then, keeping her head down as, for the second time that week, she was dismissed, she headed towards the exit, Mr. Matthews watching her progress stormily as she went.

Like the rest of the workers who slowed their pace in order to watch the scene—each and every one grateful that it was happening to Stress and not _her—_Emma was so preoccupied then by what was going on behind her with Mr. Matthews and Stress that she wasn't paying attention to what _she_ was doing. Her fingers, so used to the motion after starting her third shift at the factory, kept on cutting while she snuck quick peeks over her shoulder.

And, because she wasn't watching where she was cutting, it was no surprise when part of the fabric slipped between the two flimsy blades and, while the blades were flimsy and dull when Emma found a particularly stubborn strand of thread that just wouldn't be cut, those same contrary blades slid right through the ruched fabric as easily as a hot knife through butter.

After so many hours with the same _snick-_ing noise coming from her scissors, the muffled sound they made when they cut right through the material, it brought Emma around. Glancing down at the shirtwaist in her hand, she stared in horror to realize the rather large cut she had made. A surge of anger at her own mistake went through her and, in what was probably one of the most foolish things she done since deciding to go to New York on her own was a _good_ idea, Emma slammed her scissors down against the rug in frustration.

She heard the gasp coming from the cutter next to her, a young Jewish girl called Rachel with big, brown eyes and a slight lisp, and knew before she'd seen it that her scissors hadn't survived her temper tantrum. Slowly, lifting her hand, she looked at the thin metal scissors—or, really, what had been a pair of thin metal scissors. Now she had two halves, one of the blades bent and the flimsy handle broken on one side.

And Mr. Matthews' warning from her first afternoon came back to haunt her in that moment: _We'll provide your first pair of scissors but if you break them, you'll be responsible for bringing in your own. If you cut more than just thread, the shirtwaist comes out of your pay. Do you understand?_

Oh, boy, _did_ she understand.

Darn it!

It was at some point while Emma was both mourning the shirt she would have to pay for out of her wages—just because she didn't exactly _need_ her wages, she didn't want to be working for _nothing—_and cursing herself for throwing her scissors out of anger and breaking them that Mr. Matthews finished up his talk with Stress. The result being that her machine was turned off and her seat emptied before Emma had noticed—though, without Stress Rhian to occupy his attention, Mr. Matthews' keen sense zeroed right in on Emma.

Emma heard the way his footsteps seemed to edge ever closer, pretended she didn't notice the way Rachel stiffened at his approach, then slumped her shoulders in dismay when she saw the inevitable shadow falling over her.

"What do we have here, _Miss_ Sullivan?" The way he said _miss_ made Emma feel like he still wasn't convinced without her bow. "Hm?"

She didn't know how to explain. Then again, she didn't have to. All Emma had to do was pick up the two pieces of the broken scissors—that was all the explanation Mr. Matthews needed.

The foreman was in rare form after dismissing Stress from her station. He wasted no time in regaining his formidable temper. "Am I to understand that you brought your own pair of scissors to replace the one you've so callously destroyed?"

"Yes—I mean, no. No, Mr. Matthews."

"Yes or no, _miss_, which is it?"

Emma gulped. "No, sir."

Mr. Matthews tutted his disapproval. "Then what are you doing still sitting there? I don't suppose you expect Mr. Mitchell to pay you to gawp about rather than do your cutting?"

"No, sir," Emma repeated, feeling the heat rushing to her cheeks. She could feel the eyes of all the other workers on her and the floor foreman and without Stress still sitting at her machine, she knew there was no help for her. Leaving the broken blades where they lay, Emma got to her feet slowly, slyly toeing the ruined shirtwaist away from her in the hopes that Mr. Matthews might not notice.

No such luck. The foreman noticed _everything_.

"And Miss Sullivan?"

"Yes, Mr. Matthews?"

He sniffed. "I'll make sure Mr. Mitchell takes that shirtwaist out of your wages this week."

"Yes, sir," Emma mumbled. Then, before he—or any of the other factory workers—could notice just how flustered and red she'd gotten, not to mention just how entirely humiliated she'd been by the stolid foreman, she scurried past her fellow cutters on the rug and left the factory, keeping her head down as she went.

The only benefit to being let out so early was that she wasn't the only one. Maybe this was just the break she needed. Maybe, with Stress's help, she could finally start her search.

Emma hoped that Stress would be lingering outside since she was sent out not much earlier before Emma had been. But perhaps too used to being sent home midway through the day, Stress was already long gone by the time Emma stepped back onto the street. Thankfully, Emma had always had a head for directions and, after following Stress and the other girls back to Bottle Alley those last two nights, she was confident she would find her way without worrying.

_No_, she thought with a sinking feeling, _that's not what I have to worry about... _There was Francis most importantly, and how it seemed like everyone was conspiring to keep them apart. The shirtwaist she destroyed was quite important considering she would have to pay for it herself and that was after she gave Stress the nickels she owed her for the last two night's lodging. And then there was her scissors, and how she wasn't going to be able to go back to the factory... to make the money she owed Mrs. Cook and Stress... to have a place to stay... in order to find her brother.

Well, she hadn't really even gotten a start to finding Francis again just yet but, suddenly, Emma knew how she could at least get rid of _one_ of her main concerns. And, since she knew where she could find Stress when she was done, she decided to embark on a little errand first.

Feeling rather proud of herself, Emma found her way back to the alley where she'd first changed out of her traveling dress and into the clothes she had borrowed from young James O'Halloran. It had been a smart move on her part to remember both the street and a couple of landmarks—the bookstore across the way, the striped fruit cart that stood on the corner, a rusted statue not too far away—so that she would be able to find the right alley. Even better, when she ducked into the side street, feeling a lot more conspicuous wearing a blouse and a skirt without her bow, the satchel was right where she left it.

After only three days in the city, she realized how lucky she had been to find her satchel again. If there was one thing she had learned, especially after that morning, was that nothing was safe. Not even little white bows, she thought with a returning huff.

Emma glanced inside the bag, pleased to see the lovely white fabric of the dress, then reached inside to pet the dress; it was softer and silkier than the material she worked with at the shirtwaist factory, and the sensation of the fabric against her tender palms felt nice. Pushing past the dress, she dug deeper, hoping that—

_Yes_, she thought with a sigh of relief as her fingers closed around the shears. _They're here_.

For as long as she would have to put up with this charade—and, considering she was no closer to finding her brother now than when she started, Emma feared it would be still quite some time—she would have a proper pair of scissors for when she returned to the factory. None of those flimsy blades for her. Not any longer.

Clutching her satchel close to her, unable to just take the shears and leave her beautiful traveling dress behind again, Emma worked to figure out how she was to find her way back to Bottle Alley from this starting point. Finding her way through different parts of New York was much easier than it had been, especially once she figured out which way the numbers were going, up or down, and she figured she was heading in the right direction after only a few missteps.

Without worrying about where she was going, Emma thought of her brother again. Despite being so preoccupied with her new job, Emma hadn't entirely forgotten about finding Francis.

Stress was right where Emma thought she would be: lying back on her bottom bunk, clutching another one of those ridiculous dime store romance novels, reading it voraciously. She saw Emma shuffle inside room three, finished the page she was reading, then stuck her finger inside the spine so that she wouldn't lose her place. Only then did she glance up and, raising her eyebrows in surprise, say, "What are you doin' back so soon, lassie? It's hardly halfway through the day yet."

Emma grinned sheepishly. "I broke my scissors."

Stress nodded. That explained it, all right.

Having had her question answered, she pointed at the bag Emma was holding onto tightly. "Say, what have you got there?" She set her book face-down on the bunk, her curiosity lighting up her strange greenish-yellow eyes. She gestured for Emma to come closer. "Come on. Let me see."

Emma hesitated for only a heartbeat. For some reason, she didn't really want to show Stress the expensive dress still inside the satchel but she thought she knew the Irish girl well enough after three days together to know that Stress' curiosity was pretty much insatiable; once her interest was piqued, there was no escaping it. So, trying not to make it look like the bag was as full as it was, Emma wrapped her small hand around the shears and pulled them out.

Stress whistled in appreciation. "Those are a beaut, Em. Where'd ya get them?"

While Stress's attention was on the shiny, silver shears, Emma shoved the satchel underneath her cot and prayed Stress hadn't noticed. After making the decision to keep the truth to herself that first day, she knew she couldn't be entirely honest now. Even if she was, she she'd already let slip a few lies and Emma didn't want her new friend to think of her as a liar. Even if it was only a lie by omission... it was still a lie, wasn't it?

"I brought them with me," she answered honestly, pulling one thick strand of short hair. "I needed to cut my hair, remember?"

Stress laughed, even though it almost looked like it hurt her to do so. "Are ya tellin' me ya left your auntie in Pennsylvania and came all this way, and ya coulda brought anything with ya, and all ya got was a pair of your neighbor's trousers and a pair of scissors?"

"Well, yes," Emma said, and she could feel her face heat up. That would've been the perfect time for her to admit to the dress under her bunk—or even the money pouch she still wore on a string around her neck. But she didn't. "And I'm glad I did, too."

"Why's that?"

Emma launched into the same explanation she'd told herself just outside the factory: how she needed the scissors to make the money to have a place to stay while she was looking for Francis. With Stress as a captive audience, Emma felt a bit of a tantrum come on, and quickly her explanation turned into a rant—

"—so now I have to bring my aunt's good scissors with me to the factory so that I can earn enough money to pay you back for spotting my lodging, because I know I don't want to sleep outside until I found Francis. And there's no way I can stay anywhere else, Mr. Kloppman saw through my disguise so easily, and I like it here. I do. But I broke my scissors, and I've already cut through one shirtwaist, and to make matters worse, I'm no closer to finding my brother than I was when I was in Erie!"

Stress, who had listened so intently while the younger girl let out her frustrations, looked pained at the end. And it wasn't just because she had told Emma her first night that she might be able to help. But there was no way for Emma to know that her words like a slap in the face because there was no way for Emma to know how just the thought of Jack Kelly made Stress feel.

It was during the strike when she first met him. Jack Kelly, the ringleader of the newsboys' strike, was passing out something called the Newsies Banner, a damp, smudged newsletter in order to garner support for the working kids of New York. He was accompanied by a boy with curly hair and big blue eyes and a girl who was everything that Stress wasn't. Of the Mitchell's girls, Stress was the one approached by the newsies' passing out their paper, and she was the one who got an earful from Jack Kelly himself about how the strike wasn't just for them—it was for any working kid in the city in need of standing up for themselves.

Even though none of the Mitchell's garment workers joined in on the strike, Stress was taken in by Jack's charms and his words. Faking her cough—for one of the only times ever—she cut out of the factory early the day of the big rally in front of the New York World building, watching with the crowd as Jack Kelly and his newsboys won. Swept up in the emotions, she cheered with the rest of them, trying to fight her way through the crowd to get as close to Jack as she could if only she could speak with him again.

But she didn't. The crowd was too dense, she couldn't get any further, so she wasn't able to see it when Jack Kelly got into Theodore Roosevelt's carriage and rode out of the city. But, because she didn't have to return to the factory until the next day, she lingered around Newsies Square, and was in perfect position to watch as Jack Kelly came riding back and, with a crowd forming around him, found himself kissing that pretty, prissy girl with the perfect skin and the perfect hair.

And Stress, who'd only ever met Jack Kelly once, felt as if her heart was being squeezed. But that didn't mean that she had forgotten him, or that she hadn't kept her eyes and ears peeled for any mention of the handsome, young newsie who'd captured her attention in the first moment she ever shared one word with him.

She sighed and, trying not to sound too hopeful—or too bitter—finally confessed: "Now, I wouldn't say that. As it turns out, I might know of a couple of places where your brother could be. It's not so hopeless as ya think."

"Really? What haven't you said _before_?"

Stress shook her head and coughed so suddenly, and Emma knew better than to ask that again.

But that didn't mean that she was done with her questions. The hope was like a balloon inflating her chest; there was a risk that it would pop or that she would drift away and only the understanding that Stress hadn't offered up any further information just yet kept her grounded. Swallowing back her excitement as she clasped her hands to her chest, Emma squealed, "Where should we look?"

Stress grimaced. "Jack—"

"Who?"

"Your brother."

"You mean Francis?"

"Aye. Him." Stress paused. "Say, can I see that clippin' of yours again, Em?"

Emma had taken to keeping the newspaper clipping she'd taken from the Porter house with her at all times. Maybe she was afraid it would go conveniently missing if she left it in her night table—spiteful or not, she was secretly convinced it was Florence who stole her white bow from the top drawer—or maybe, deep down, she was afraid that she wouldn't recognize Francis without it, but Emma refused to leave it behind in room three. Reaching into the front pocket of her skirt, she gingerly pulled out the folded over piece of newspaper and passed it to Stress.

"Thanks." Stress carefully opened it up. She pointed at the picture of Jack Kelly in the center. "That's him, right? Your brother?"

Emma stepped on her tiptoes, looking where Stress was pointing. She nodded vigorously. "That's him."

"Just makin' sure." She handed the clipping back. It would've been so much easier if, perhaps, Emma had said no. "For my sake, and his as well, do ya think we could agree on callin' him Jack Kelly?"

It was such a silly thing but... well, Emma didn't like to think of her brother being called any other name than Francis Sullivan. It only reminded her how much Aunt Moira wanted her to distance herself from her father's surname—and it seemed as if Francis Junior had already done the same. However, since it was such a silly thing—and she didn't want to have to explain it to Stress—she found herself nodding in agreement. At least, she promised herself, until she found Francis again and could call him whatever she wanted.

Stress looked relieved. "That boy, Jack Kelly, if he's still a newsie, and I can't think why he wouldn't be, he would probably be found at one of the newsboy's haunts, wouldn't ya say?"

"That makes perfect sense to me. But, Stress, I think you might be forgetting something." Emma deflated, just a little, as she said: "_We_ are not newsies. I have no idea what sort of place would be a proper newsboy's haunt."

"I told ya," Stress told her, forcing back the uneasy feeling in her stomach. "I might."

She had sworn to herself that she wanted nothing to do with the charismatic strike leader—she _lied—_and that, if she could get out of it, she would keep Emma safe and away from the trouble that seemed to follow the newsies around. But, confronted with how distraught Emma was at the prospect of never finding her brother, Stress knew she would have to help the girl.

"Then what are we waiting here for?" Emma asked excitedly. "Let's go!"

By expecting Emma's reaction, Stress was able to reach out and grab the sleeve of Emma's blouse a split second before the young girl spun around and started for the door. "Now, hold on there, lassie. Aren't ya forgettin' something?"

"What?"

"It's the middle of the afternoon. By any rights, we should still be workin', so where do ya think your brother's gonna be? Workin', aye, and with so many newsies in this grand, old city, it'll be like lookin' for a four leaf clover, tryin' to pick him out of the crowd. We gotta wait a bit, Em."

Emma saw the reason in Stress's response but that didn't make her feel any less antsy. "Wait? For how long?"

And Stress offered a cheeky grin. For once, keeping tabs on the boy she couldn't have might just have come in handy.

"How about 'til supper? 'Cause, ya see, I know this great place..."

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: I didn't mean for this chapter to get so long and out of control but it was significant. I wanted to show that Emma would finally be making a start on her search - as well as the touch of backstory between Stress and Jack. Since the girls are factory workers in this fic, I thought I would switch up the relationship between Stress and Jack; instead of being friends, she just has a crush and, well, he has no idea who she is. I love it ;)

The next chapter will be another Aunt Moira interlude and then, woot, we'll get to see Jack again. We're getting there - and I'm just about at my 50k! 3 more days... wish me luck!

43k down, 7k to go!

- _stress, 07.29.11_


	11. ten: maggie

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TEN;<strong>

In the days that followed the discovery of Emma's disappearance, Moira Porter went about her daily activities as usual. While she waited expectantly for the replies to the two telegrams she sent—one to Boston, another to New York—she knew that if she didn't keep to her schedule as she normally did, then the wait might just drive her mad.

It wasn't that she was a hard-hearted woman, or particularly callous and cold. She worried about Emma, she worried that her niece was getting into trouble, or that she was in over her head, but above all, Mrs. Porter was a practical woman who saw little help in becoming hysterical with worry when there was nothing more to be done. Oh, she could embark on a wild-goose chase, taking the same train up to Boston that Emma hadn't, or perhaps she could follow her hunch and travel over to Manhattan. But what good would that do if she chose the wrong path?

No, she would wait. There was, she felt, nothing else she could do but wait for her replies and hope that Emma had learned enough in her fourteen years to keep from doing anything silly.

Then again, considering the girl was a Sullivan, it was a little harder than she thought to fight back her rising concerns as another day passed and the messenger boy didn't return.

Despite trying to keep her head up, Mrs. Porter found herself turning to her study more and more since she discovered her niece's betrayal. Because that's what it was. Betrayal. After all she'd done for the girl, all she'd given up in order to take her good-for-nothing brother's only daughter in, raising her these last six years as if she were his own... after everything, Emma had thrown it all back in her face, dashing off to New York—if, in fact, that was where Emma had gone, and Mrs. Porter certainly thought so herself—as carelessly as she had done.

Instead of taking her coffee and lunch in the dining room or sitting down to read in the parlor, the mistress of the Porter House started to spend most of her free time in the study, taking a seat at her desk, going through the drawers absently as if she had nothing better to do. By that afternoon, the fourth one since she sent her telegrams out, she had gone through nearly every drawer, straightening the contents over and over again, reading old letters and thinking back to other times. Better times.

But not all of them...

Pursing her lips, Mrs. Porter reached into her drawer and, like she was almost certain Emma had done at some point, she delicately drew out the stack of letters she'd kept for so long. Ever since she discovered that her niece had stumbled innocently—then again, she mused, since it was _Emma _who had done the snooping, innocent probably didn't really factor in there anywhere—she'd gone through the stack herself, reading over the letters that had sent Emma running away from Boston.

Even through her gloves, Mrs. Porter felt the stiff paper of the envelope on the bottom of the pile. Curious, though she knew exactly what that letter said, she picked it out of its place and put the rest of the stack away.

It was an old letter, much older than those on the top, and the envelope itself was the color of coffee stains in spite of all Mrs. Porter's care. There weren't many lines because everything her brother's poor wife had had to say—about the birth of her son first, her daughter some years later, and then Frank's incarceration, the hardships that followed—had already been said in letters past. Mrs. Porter hadn't thought to keep Margaret's letters at the time, though now she regretted it, but there was something about that one in particular that she had held onto.

It was, of all the correspondences Margaret Sullivan ever sent, the only one asking Mrs. Porter for help.

* * *

><p><em>My dearest Moira,<em>

_Thank you for writing at Christmas. It was the first without Frank and we missed him, but a little cheer from you went a long way._

_I wasn't sure if I would have the nerve to write to you so soon and, so many times now, I've started a letter only to throw it away. I didn't want to worry you until I had no choice and... there's no longer any choice left for me. There's nothing left for me. I'm dying, Moira, and I know that. Don't pity me, I'm not looking for that._

_No, I'm looking for... there's no delicate way to put this, so here: I'm looking for your help. With Frank gone now, the children only have me. And when I'm gone... you're the only family we have left. So I guess what I'm asking is, would you take them? My Francis and little Emma, they're all I have. They'll need you and, perhaps, you might just need them, too. _

_Yours,  
>Maggie<em>

* * *

><p>Mrs. Porter sighed as she folded Margaret Sullivan's last letter delicately and placed it back in the envelope, her shoulders weighed down by the words and the feelings—and the <em>memories<em>—that it inspired. She had told herself for years that she held onto all of these correspondences because, one day when Emma was older, she wanted to have something to give to her niece. And maybe that was true. She certainly didn't throw them away because, in her own way, Moira missed Maggie and wished her brother hadn't gotten himself into so much trouble.

Her thoughts drifted over to think of Frank, her younger brother by nearly almost a decade. She'd always felt more like a mother to Frank than an older sister and when she heard from his wife that he'd been arrested for trying to break up a fight, only to end up stabbing a man himself, Mrs. Porter had blamed herself. Bitter and just reeling from the loss of her husband, she heard from Margaret of her brother's arrest and wanted nothing to do with him—which, in the aftermath of her grief, also meant Frank's fledgling family.

In fact, though Margaret wrote often during her last few years, Moira always replied tersely, intent on holing herself up in Porter House, old and alone. Any reminder of her brother was another reminder of her failures and shortcomings... that is, until that last letter came and, feeling guilty for shutting his brother's family out when she could've helped, Mrs. Porter made a decision: better late than never, she would give aid to those who needed it.

There was one problem, though. By the time she arrived in New York, Margaret Sullivan and her two children were nowhere to be found. They had to move out of their one-room important when Frank was arrested and Mrs. Porter had no idea where they could've gone. In the end, it took her weeks and quite a bit of money exchanging hands—not to mention sending Henry on all sorts of errands, looking for anyone who might fit the Sullivans' descriptions, in the hospitals, the morgues, anywhere—before she found Emma Sullivan living in that basement slum.

Margaret Sullivan was long gone, dead and buried. Francis, twelve years old and, from the stories Henry was told, just as bad an egg as his father, was nowhere to be found; he was often out for days on a time and Moira arrived during one of his nameless missions. But there was Emma, living in squalor, an eight-year-old little girl clutching a battered, second-hand rag doll like it was all she had in the world. With a sniff, Mrs. Porter had decided that it might just be.

Even six years later, Mrs. Porter could remember the rank smell of death and decay that clung to the damp air in that cellar room. The brick walls were coated in grime and ooze and soot; she had had to remove her handkerchief and hold it to her nose in order to breathe without retching. There was no thought of waiting for Francis Junior. She didn't dare linger in that pit any longer than it took to pass a few coins to the large Irish woman who said she was caring for Emma. Then, taking the ragdoll from Emma and tossing it to the ground, she grabbed Emma—who was too cowed, too afraid, too _weak—_to resist her aunt's strong grip and brought her out to the street where Henry was waiting with their rented carriage.

Margaret Sullivan's last wish had been for Moira Porter to watch over her children. No matter what, Mrs. Porter felt she had. She'd rescued Emma when the girl would'nt have survived much longer in that prison, and she'd done for the older boy what she felt he deserved.

And yet... suddenly, for the first time in six years, she wondered if perhaps that had been _enough—_

"Madam?"

Mrs. Porter heard Henry's knock and then his voice and knew he must be wondering what she was doing, locking herself in her study. Though his voice startled her at first, ripping her from her thoughts and her memories, she recovered nicely. Taking her time, she placed Margaret's letter back in its place at the bottom of the stack before patting her hair in place and, striding purposefully across the room, opening the door. She adopted her most fierce expression in time to find Henry standing in the doorway, his right hand poised in position to knock again.

She arched an eyebrow. "Yes, Henry?"

His left hand was behind his back. Without even blinking under the weight of his employer's pointed glaze, Henry offered it out to Mrs. Porter. His hand, and the two yellow telegrams he held tight within his grasp. "These just came for you, madam. I brought them as soon as I saw the young delivery boy off."

Mrs. Porter had enough experience with Henry Solomon to know the wizened old butler did not respect an apologetic mistress. She simply nodded once and accepted the telegrams without a word. Henry, having done his duty, clicked his heels and shuffled off back the way he came. He had barely taken a few steps down the hall before the door to Mrs. Porter's study closed again, followed by the soft, tell-tale _snick _of the lock once more being turned.

The first one, the one from the Hyde Park boarding school, it said exactly what she had expected it to. In considerable more detail than her first telegram, Mrs. Miller explained that a full search had been made of the school train and the only things they found that belonged to Emma were her luggage which the Hyde Park school was boarding for her until Emma finally arrived. None of the students had any idea what could have happened to her, though Mary O'Halloran had been to the sick bay to visit with the school nurse more than any of her peers. The headmistress went on to promise that she would keep Mrs. Porter posted if anything else came up on Emma but Mrs. Porter wasn't going to hold her breath.

It also didn't go by unnoticed that the date on the telegram was from two days ago. She raised her eyebrows at that. It seemed as if the reply had been made quite quickly, even if the delivery boy hadn't brought it by until just then. Why had the telegram office held onto it? Unless...

Unless her second telegram had only just been answered.

Placing the Hyde Park School telegram on top of her desk, Mrs. Porter tore into the second telegram:

**AUGUST 31, 1899**

**TELEGRAM**

**TO MRS. PORTER AT 23 MOCKINGBIRD LANE, ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA**

**YOUNG GIRL ASKING FOR FRANCIS STOP COULD BE YOURS STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP**

**ALFRED KLOPPMAN**

First things first, Moira thought. The date... _August 31__st__. _The telegram was from that day. At least that explained why she hadn't received the telegram from Hyde Park School until then. Of course the telegram office would wait until both telegrams Mrs. Porter sent received their replies. She hadn't paid any extra for double delivery.

Feeling a little ashamed at her own thriftiness, she read the short message a second time; Kloppman, it seemed, hadn't spared the expense, either. Three short sentences and all she knew was that a young girl was asking after her nephew. Though she supposed she should've been grateful enough that she had someone in New York to ask about Emma's possible appearance as it was.

Kloppman...

Alfred Kloppman had been the superintendent of the Duane Street Newsboys' Lodging House for many, many years. But that hadn't always been the only way he made his living. Fresh out of service in the Civil War of the '60's, a younger Kloppman moved to New York to forget the horrors he saw out in the war. He was one of the lucky ones—he left the battlefields the way he entered them, all in one piece, and in one piece of mind, too.

Still, he arrived in New York, battered and bruised and in need of work. By some stroke of luck, he ended up in the employ of the Porter family, doing odds and ends for William Porter's elderly father whenever he was in town, tending to business in New York rather than living in the family home in Pennsylvania. Kloppman became quite chummy with William, who was then about the same age as Kloppman's younger bother, Arnold. He gave the younger Porter some sound advice when he was trying to gain favor with Moira Sullivan and even was invited to their small wedding before the entire Porter family moved back to the Porter House—but not before the elder Mr. Porter used his clout to land Alfred Kloppman a good job with the Children's Aid Society.

So when William's widow had a young nephew many years later who was living on his own in New York, he was more than willing to keep any eye out for the boy if he ever came to stay at the Newsboys' Lodging House that Kloppman ran. It wasn't a surprise when Francis Sullivan—for Kloppman knew Jack Kelly as Francis Sullivan first before the boy convinced everyone that his name really _Jack—_crossed his threshold and began to lodge on Duane Street.

In Kloppman's experience, almost every young orphan and runaway in the city had spent at least one night in his lodging house. Just, sometimes, they never left. And, courtesy of Mrs. Porter's letters and Kloppman's usually prompt replies, she was able to make sure that she could help her nephew out as much as she could, watching over him, making sure from afar that the bad blood in him hadn't turned him into a miniature of his father just yet.

And, Mrs. Porter thought, kneading the edge of Kloppman's telegram with her gloved fingers, now it seemed as if Emma had found her way to Kloppman, too. She wasn't sure how that made her feel. Pleased that she knew her niece well enough to guess her move? Or horrified that, after these last six years, Emma was so close to being reunited with the no-good brother than Mrs. Porter had worked so hard to make the girl forget?

She glanced down at the telegram again. The last words stuck out at her—

**_PLEASE ADVISE_**.

Most assuredly, Mrs. Porter checked that her dressers drawers were all closed. Then, bringing Kloppman's telegram with her as she went, she headed right for the study door, throwing it open with enough force that the knob hit the inside study wall with a resounding _thwack_.

"Henry!"

Her butler appeared at the end of the hall almost immediately. "Yes, madam."

She held up the yellow telegram so that he could see it. "I need you to arrange for the carriage to be brought around to the front. As soon as you can, and tell the stable boy I won't tolerate any delay."

"Of course, madam."

"And then, once you've done that, find Sally and send her to my room. I will require her help in packing. Get your wife to pack you a bag, Henry. You will be accompanying me."

The grey-haired butler nodded. None of his mistress's demands struck him as odd, especially as how he had become accustomed to acting as a traveling companion since Master Porter's untimely death. Henry's wife, Mrs. Solomon, she couldn't bear to be away from her kitchen for more than a few hours at a time and young Sally, the maid, would hardly be a suitable companion. Still, behind his severe and austere facade, Henry Solomon was nothing if a little curious. And, after close to fifty years of faithful service to the Porter House, he earned the right to be so.

"Something tells me that the carriage won't be returning to the telegram office this afternoon," Henry murmured, not quiet posing the question of his mistress.

But she answered regardless. "No, Henry," she said royally, waving the hand holding the telegram while her face twisted in a satisfied grimace. "We're heading to the train yards."

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: I will finish this 50k if it kills me!

46k down, 4k to go!

- _stress, 07.30.11_


	12. eleven: tibby's

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER ELEVEN;<strong>

For the next couple of nights, Emma and Stress left Mitchell's Shirtwaist Factory together—neither one was sent home early again, not since Emma brought in her sturdy shears and Stress got even better at hiding her nagging cough.

They didn't always go alone. Sometimes Pepper and her mate, Lois, tagged along. Florence went the second night, eager to put any bad blood between her and Stress to rest; rumors ran rampant in room three that the poor boy she was after actually said hello back and, as she was now floating on cloud nine, she was a much happier Flo. But, no matter how many girls left the factory together, there was always enough room over at Tibby's.

Tibby's was a local diner on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was a friendly sort of place, with reasonably priced soups, chicken and the biggest, thickest knockwurst sandwiches this side of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the owner—a grizzled old man named Franklin Tibby—was more than willing to welcome the working children of New York, so long as they could afford to pay for their meal. The factory girls usually spent their evenings eating the meal Mrs. Addiman and Mrs. Cook prepared but for those last three nights—four, if you count the one where Stress and Emma were sent away from the factory earlier that afternoon—at least two of the Bottle Alley lodgers bought their supper at the diner.

It was, Stress explained to Emma, the diner where the Manhattan newsies, the boys who lived in sold in this part of the city, staked their claim. After a hard day selling their newspapers, Tibby's was the place to go for a hot meal and a sarsparilla if the headlines had been good enough. If Emma really wanted to try to find her brother, if her brother really was the strike leader called Jack Kelly, than visiting Tibby's for the supper meal was one of the best ways to find him. At least, it beat trying to sneak inside the boys' lodging house again.

Emma, for her part, wasn't so convinced. While the food was tasty and wasn't so expensive, she sat with the other girls, watching out for her brother. Sometimes she would take the newspaper clipping out of her pocket and look at it, just to make sure she remembered what he looked like so that she would recognize him if he walked through the door. Because that was still her fear: that her brother would walk right by her and Emma would let him pass, having no idea that he was Francis.

And then, on their third night at the same corner table in the back, she saw him.

He wasn't alone. Accompanied by a tall, lanky boy with curly brown hair who walked stiffly, like he had a stick taped to his back, Emma realized at once that she didn't need a photograph to know her brother. In the instant she saw him, wearing a red neckerchief and laughing easily, his arm slung around the other boy's shoulders. Francis walked into the diner like he owned it, and Emma's attention was drawn to him immediately. And, though she would never admit it, so was Stress's.

"That's him," Emma gasped, reaching out across the table, grabbing Stress by the forearm. She pointed over at the booth that her brother and his Francis had just slid into.

"So it is." The older girl winced. Emma's fingers were like pincers in her skin. She placed her hand over Emma's, trying her best to calm her down. "It's alright, Em. You can go on and talk to him. He's right there, waitin' for ya."

"You want me to go _over_ there?"

Stress bit back a smile. "Of course. Ain't that what you wanted? To talk to your brother?"

"I wanted to find him," Emma said weakly. "I didn't know I'd have to _talk_ to him, too."

"Ah, that's quitter's talk, it is. Here," Stress took her arm back, trying not to notice the gouges Emma's fingernails left in her skin, "it's time for ya to go. Come on, that's a good girl. Up ya get." She patted the top of Emma's listless hand and motioned for her to rise. "I'll sit right here and wait for ya. You go up to Jack Kelly—"

"Francis."

"Aye," Stress soothed, "him. You tell him who ya are. Go on." When Emma hesitated, Stress threw down her last card. "Don't tell me that you've dragged me out to this diner for these last few nights and _now _you've decided that you don't want to see your brother after all? Me, with this poor cough o' mine." And, for good measure and a mischievous twinkle in her eye, Stress coughed pitifully just the once.

That little guilt-filled nudge was all the push Emma needed. Swallowing back her sudden nerves, she stood up. "I'm going over there," she announced.

"I'll be waitin' right here," Stress repeated.

"Here I go."

"Alright, then."

"I'm going for real," Emma said, as if she was telling herself instead of her companion.

Stress nodded encouragingly. And then, "Em?"

"Yes?"

"Goin' over there means lettin' go of the table," Stress pointed out.

Emma looked down. Both of her hands were still gripping the sticky table top, her knuckles gone white at the grip. She laughed at her own foolishness. "I guess you're right." She gulped again. "Here I go."

And that time, she went.

Just like she said she would, Stress watched Emma as she shuffled towards that booth, going as slow as molasses; Stress Rhian, never really known for her patience, was so close to rushing over there, picking Emma up and carrying her the rest of the way. If she didn't know better, she would've thought that the idea of talking to her brother again was terrifying the girl. Emma certainly was taking her sweet time and when she finally reached the table, Stress let out an audible sigh.

_Finally._

The booth that Jack Kelly and his friend—Stress couldn't remember his name, though she knew he had been Jack's sidekick during the newsies strike—had sat themselves at was across the busy, crowded diner. Though she watched the scene from across the way, she couldn't hear a word of what was being said. So, when Emma stood at the edge of the booth for a few seconds before drawing back and, without even a look over at Stress, hurried right out through the front door of Tibby's, Stress had no idea what had been said between Emma and her brother.

But, whatever it was, it couldn't have been pleasant. Why else would Emma have run away?

Well, she was going to find out!

If Jack had been was sitting with the girl with the long, brown hair instead, then she probably wouldn't have dared to do what she did next. However, as it was just Jack lounging in the booth, opposite of that nervous tick of a fellow with the big, blue eyes, Stress balled her hands into fists at her side, set her shoulders and stormed right over to their table side.

* * *

><p>Jack couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched.<p>

It was supposed to be a nice, quiet supper. Jack had met up with David and Les earlier that afternoon and, to Les's delight, they had agreed to sell the evening edition together. It was a slow news day which meant that the headlines needed a little bit of improvement, but they managed to sell them all in the end. And, with a pocket full of coins, going to Tibby's was inevitable.

Les had been sent off as a runner, sent to go back to his apartment—the only destination that David trusted Les to go off to by himself—to tell Mrs. Jacobs that the two boys would be having supper at Tibby's that night with Jack. And, at David's insistence, he was to bring Sarah back with him if she wanted to come so that she could leave the apartment for a little bit and perhaps see Jack again for the first time since he came to have supper with the Jacobs earlier in the week.

Therefore, it was just them two, Jack and David, who walked into Tibby's. There was an empty booth right beside the window, one that would fit four of them comfortably, and Jack led David over to it, claiming it before anyone else could take the seat. It was right after David ordered himself a lemonade and Jack asked for a sarsaparilla that Jack first felt the weight of someone's intent gaze. A quick glance around didn't reveal much, though. To the cocky, self-assured newsie, it seemed as if _everyone_ was looking his way.

Chalking it up to another admirer—there'd been no end of them since the strike ended, though Sarah was his girl for the meanwhile—Jack leaned back lazily into his seat, listening to David tell him about some lesson in history that kept Jack amazed. King or not, he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to have six wives.

"Really, Jack," David said, his blue eyes sparkling as he found a ready ear for his trivia. "He had two of them beheaded."

Jack rubbed his neck in sympathy. "Damn it, didn't the man never hear of a divorce?"

"Actually," David began, "he—"

But what the strange English king did, Jack never found out. Because, all of a sudden, there was another figure at the table. Slight and slender with short brown hair, at first Jack thought it was Les returning and his first instinct was the wonder where Sarah was. But then, when David's eyes widened in surprise and not recognition, Jack turned to get a better look.

His glance lasted only a few seconds, enough to take in the startled expression on the... well, with the short hair, he figured it had to be a boy, even if the features were a little girly; he couldn't see if the figure was in trousers or a skirt, and the flatness of the shirt was no giveaway. Either way, he met the frightened eyes of his person, the person squealed in a manner that was _definitely _girly, and then bustled away without saying a word.

And that wasn't even the strangest thing that happened to Jack and David—no, what happened next was almost enough to put that first encounter out of their minds. Because, no sooner were they alone again, than a second shadow fell across their table.

It still wasn't Les.

There was no denying that their second visitor was a girl. Pale and drawn, with curly hair flying behind her in her rush to approach them, and greenish-yellow eyes flashing in obvious anger, she loomed over them, making her presence felt without a single word. Her lips were pursed, her chest heaving, and when she spoke, her words came out in such a strong accent, it took him a moment to decipher the three little words she spat out at him:

"How dare you!"

David looked over at Jack—who looked back with as baffled of an expression. Figuring it would be best to be polite, he said, "Excuse me?"

The girl ignored him. She only had eyes for Jack. "You... oh!" She scowled and, without another word, stormed away as quickly as she had come. In another moment, she was gone, having taken the same path as the previous girl, heading right outside again.

Jack sat in his seat, stunned. It was one thing for that first... person to trod slowly up to their table, stare at Jack for a second and then run away without an explanation or even a word. But now this? This wild-eyed, wild-haired Irish girl had looked at him the way he knew Sarah looked at a rat that happened to cross her path: a little bit frightened, a little bit anxious and absolutely disgusted. She girl looked at him like he was _vermin. _Worthless.

And he was almost positive he'd done nothing to deserve _that_.

"Jack," David said, and he sounded breathless in his bewilderment, "did you know that girl?"

Jack couldn't get her scathing expression out of his head and it took him a second before he realized that David had asked him a question. "Nope," he said at last.

"What about the first one?"

Jack shook his head. "To be honest, Davey, I was hopin' _you _did." He paused. "Say, are ya sure that the first one was a girl?"

And the thing was this: David _was_ pretty sure—just like he thought he might've actually come face to face with the strange girl Les stillmentioned at times. Huh, he mused. Small world. What a shame that Les hadn't made it back to Tibby's yet, though.

* * *

><p><strong>End<strong> **Note**: Well, I did it. I set out, trying to write 50k of a brand new fic by July 31st and I did it. Now, I may not have finished the story, though - but I have almost all of it completed (yea for writing out of sequence!) And that's including the real first meeting ;) I'm still up in the air about taking on August's NaNo - it would be nice to get 50k of a prospective Red sequel done, though posting definitely won't be as frequent as with this story. Especially since I still have to complete this. Ah, well. I guess we'll see.

I just want to take a moment to thank any and everyone who went on this ride with me. I'm sure it was just as intense being bombarded with 50k in 31 days as it was for me to try to get it out, but I really appreciated any reviews/comments I received. I'll always be able to look back on this as a very interesting experiment :) And I really am enjoying the characters/plot/deconstruction of a well-known cliche with this. Keep an eye out for the next chapter!

Camp NaNoWriMo Total: 51061. Yes!

- _stress, 07.31.11_


	13. twelve: tomorrow

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TWELVE;<strong>

When Stress met up with Emma about three blocks away, she was winded, out of breath from the mad dash she had taken to catch the younger girl. Stress may have had longer legs, but her coughs left her slow and Emma, her emotions carried her away quickly.

"Emma," she gasped, clutching at the stitch in her side, "wait for me!"

Emma stopped at the corner, whirling around when she heard Stress calling after her. Her big brown eyes were wide and glistening in the lamplight; there were tears there, she hadn't shed them yet, but there was no doubt that it was only a mtter of time until the waterworks began. Her bottom lips was already trembling as she cried out, "I'm such an idiot!"

Stress was working hard to catch her breath. She gulped in great big mouthfuls of air, aware that Emma was upset but too light-headed to do anything about it just yet. Only when she could speak without pausing for breath again, did she try to calm Emma down: "No, you're not, you—"

It didn't work.

"I know what I did, Stress," Emma argued, and it wasn't sadness that brought about the tears but anger at her own actions. "I had my brother there... right there, and what did I do? I ran away. I'm such a coward!"

Stress felt a wave of guilt wash over her at the way she stormed over to Jack, assuming the worst when it came to his treatment of Emma, but she ignored it. "What happened back there?" she asked.

"I don't know... I just, he looked at me. He looked up at me and he had no idea who I was and I couldn't tell him. I couldn't. He would've laughed!"

"So what?"

That wasn't the answer Emma had been expecting. "Pardon?" She had expected Stress to take her side, to understand... but from the way Stress had crossed her arms over her chest and was suddenly looking a lot less sympathetic, Emma realized that she was on her own for this one.

"Aye, and ya heard me, Em." Stress shook her head. Three days sitting in Tibby's without so much as a single novel to read and Emma left because she was afraid her brother would _laugh _at her? "So what? Let 'im laugh, what would that've done? Nothin' 'cept wound your pride, perhaps, and then you can explain yourself and who'd be laughin', hmm?" She huffed. "So what if he laughed? That wouldn't change the fact that he's your brother, right?"

"Right..." Emma wasn't so convinced.

"What's that?"

Lifting her hands up, Emma rubbed at her eyes, erasing any signs of the unshed tears that lingered there. Stress had a point. "_Right,_" she said, and she actually managed to sound like she meant it.

"Good. No go on, you go back there, lassie." Stress placed her hands on Emma's shoulders and tried to steer her around so that she was facing the way back to Tibby's. "You go tell your brother that it's you. I'll be right here waitin' while ya do." Because, as the heat in her cheeks started to rise, she realized that Emma wasn't the only one who had run out on Jack Kelly...

But Emma wasn't having it, either. Stress had a point—but that didn't mean Emma was ready to give in again. Stubbornly, she dug in her heels, just the idea of having to face Francis again so soon after she ran out on him making her stomach flop with anxiety. She shook her head fiercely, trying to duck out of Stress's grip. "I can't," she panted, sounding more like the young girl she was than in all the time she'd been in New York, "I... I just can't."

"There's that quitter's talk again. I won't be havin' it, and ya shouldn't be sayin' it at all." Still, seeing as how panicked Emma was at the idea of going back to the diner, she let go of her shoulders. Stress couldn't stifle her disappointed sigh—or maybe she made it a little louder to guilt Emma.

It worked. Emma bit her lip and then blurted out: "Tomorrow?"

"Aye?"

"Tomorrow," Emma repeated. "I'm gonna come back here tomorrow... tomorrow and every day after that if I have to... and _then_ I will talk to Francis. I won't be afraid this time, and I won't run away. I'll do it, I swear... just, _tomorrow_."

Stress could see that Emma was taking her fears and putting them off for another day but she was an old practiced hand at procrastination herself: why do today what you can put off until tomorrow, and all that jazz. And, considering she was just coming to terms with the fact that she had just stared down Jack Kelly and his friend... well, Stress suddenly wasn't so keen on insisting again Emma go back.

"Fine," she agreed. "Tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Something drew Jack Kelly back to Tibby's the next evening.<p>

He had sold the morning paper on his own, just like he had been doing ever since David's mother insisted that her two boys give it up. Jack didn't mind, he was getting tired of David's pained expression any time he caught Jack trying to "improve the truth", and it felt good to keep every damn penny he earned. So good, in fact, that he had been ducking out on David and Les whenever he could those last few weeks, taking the time to be alone.

The strike was too close a call. When it started, Jack Kelly was Jack Kelly, _Cowboy_, the rough and tumble, charming newsboy whose only concern was where his next meal was coming from and which of the two Delancey brothers he would have to soak before it; when the strike ended in the middle of last July, he was so close to being Francis Sullivan again, a family man, no longer a loner, no longer _alone_.

It wasn't as great as it sounded. Sometimes, though he would never admit it to anyone else, he wondered if he'd made the right choice, turning down Governor Roosevelt's offer of a ride down to the train yards. Though it had been kind of nice to ride _inside _the carriage...

Still, things had been different recently, and they hadn't gotten any better ever since some girl came to visit him at the lodging house, looking for him by his _real _name. In fact, Jack thought darkly, Kloppman's news was the mark where things seemed to have gone from bad to worse. The memories reared their ugly head, the thoughts of the family he'd had and lost and then tried his damndest to forget ever existed. But he hadn't. And, no matter how fondly he thought of the Jacobs, they were a mere substitute for what he'd once had. They were no replacement.

Which was why, instead of going to the Jacobs' apartment for supper that night, or even inviting Sarah or David again to a sandwich down at Tibby's, Jack found himself walking inside the diner alone. His dark brown eyes scanned the inside of Tibby's urgently, telling himself he was checking to see if any of his fellow newsies where stopping for a bite to eat, knowing that he was really looking out for those two girls from yesterday evening.

Something told him that one of them—or, hell, even both—had something to do with the muddled way Jack was feeling. And maybe that was really why he hadn't even dragged Davey along to Tibby's. Because, after the way Dave's eyes went all curious and thoughtful yesterday, maybe David thought something was strange, too.

But there was no one there... at least, Jack amended, no one that he recognized. No one that counted. Nodding to himself, then nodding over at Wally the waiter, he strode in through the diner's floor and slipped right into the booth he'd been sharing with David during supper last night. Jack lifted the heels of his shoes up and placed them on the other side, a warning against anyone trying to join him.

He didn't have much of an appetite. Though he craved a cigarette and wished he hadn't left his matches back at the lodging house, Jack made do by telling Wally to bring him a sarsaparilla. Just something wet would do him, and he ended up nursing the drink over the next half hour, unsure what he was doing there, unsure what he was really waiting for, almost wishing he'd ordered a roast beef sandwich when the smells eking out of the kitchen made his stomach ache. When was the last time he'd eaten? A breakfast roll courtesy of the nuns early that morning, that's when.

The next time Wally came by, he asked for another glass and a half of a sandwich. He caught the wary look on the waiter's face and flashed a couple of coins in barely masked aggravation before the waiter bobbed his head and hurried away. Jack slipped his coins back in his trouser pocket, just a little less hungry than he had been, and a whole lot more anxious.

What the hell was he doing there?

It didn't matter anymore. Though he couldn't help but glance up anytime he heard the bell over Tibby's door tinkle, he didn't see anyone else that he recognized—though, once, he thought he caught sight of Crutchy hobbling past along with Mush Meyers and ducked his head, covering his face with his hand—and would've left sooner, feeling a bit foolish for his trouble, if it wasn't for his growling stomach and the order he'd placed.

The sandwich was hot when Wally the waiter brought it out and Jack nearly burned his mouth on the meat in his haste to eat it. He was beginning to wonder if it had been the smartest of ideas, spending the rest of his evening in the diner when there were so many other things he could be doing: catching a show at Medda's joint, joining in on the poker game that Racetrack and Bumlets had put together or even checking in on Sarah; it had been a couple of days since he'd seen her last and David's nagging had only served to make him feel guilty for ignoring her. Curfew wasn't until eleven and though it was already dark outside of Tibby's windows, there was still enough time for him to make something of his night. Gulping down the rest of his sandwich, he chased it with half his glass of sarsaparilla and then, feeling quite satisfied, patted his stomach.

Wally came by without a word, taking the empty plate away and leaving the bill behind. Jack longed to throw a "So's your old lady," after him for his rudeness but didn't; Tibby's was one of the only diners this side of town that served decent meals and didn't turn a fella away for being a newsie. Instead, he sat back in his seat, throwing a dirty glare after the waiter.

So it was then that, just as he was deciding whether it was worth it to skip out on the bill or not, he glanced up and saw the short-haired girl—was it a girl? Jack still wasn't so sure—with the big brown eyes peeking in at him. Her mouth opened, forming a little _o_ when their eyes met and, like a squirrel, she turned and scurried away.

Jack threw a couple of nickels on the table top, not even bothering to wait for Wally to come by and count it. Then, sliding out of the booth, he ducked past an old biddy who was returning from the powder room and, headed straight for the front door. Turning left then right, shielding his eyes against the bright light of the gas lamp on the corner, he tried to find her and yelled out when he thought he had:

"Hey, you!"

The girl... boy—he still couldn't really tell, what with the short hair—they froze at the end of the street, almost as if they knew for sure that Jack was yelling after them. The curly-haired girl reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder before the shorter girl—David had thought she was a girl, hadn't he?—set her shoulders and slowly turned around.

By then, Jack had just about reached her on the corner. He didn't know why he was going after her, or why just the sight of him was enough to cause her to run out of Tibby's in the first place, but if it could help him get his worries off his mind, then Jack was all for finding out. And then she turned around and it _was_ a she because he knew that face.

The freckles. The big doe eyes. The hesitant smile that mirrored Jack's the first time he was alone with Sarah Jacobs on her rooftop... now that he was expecting her, he could see what was really there. And he knew—

"Emma," he breathed out, and then, because he couldn't help it, "your hair!"

It was no wonder he mistook her as a boy at first look. The Emma he remembered was an impish little girl with a head full of thick wavy hair that their mother had insisted she grow out no matter how dangerous or how tedious it was to keep Emma looking clean and presentable; poor or not, Margaret Sullivan took pride in her children and expected them to be proud of themselves. But Emma... her hair was shorter than Jack's now, though the color was similar, and it was a wavy, crazy mess that was barely tamed by the new tan bow Stress had found for her the day after her white one went inexplicably missing.

Emma saw the surprised expression on her brother's face and had to work hard to resist the urge to giggle uncontrollably. She ran her hands through her hair, causing it to stick up in every direction. "I like it better this way," she said, trying to sound independent, though the squeal in her voice made that nearly impossible. Her smile ran from ear to ear.

She'd found _Francis_. Because, regardless of what she called him—or what he wanted be _called—_Emma knew that he was her Francis. And she'd _found _him!

Standing right behind Emma, more of a shadow than a watcher, Stress cleared her throat. Maybe it was to loosen the stickiness that coated it, or maybe she was just trying to keep back her coughs again, but, either way, Emma heard the sound and realized just how rude she'd been.

She turned and gestured at Stress with two hands, introducing her to Jack by saying: "This is Stress."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "What kind o' name is Stress?"

Stress's friendly smile died on her face, quickly replaced by a protective sneer. "What kind o' name is _Jack_?" she shot back.

"It's my name."

"Aye, and Stress is mine," she retorted stubbornly.

Jack had heard of girls called Hellcat Maggie and the like, but Stress was something new. It was almost like a newsie name. "You sell papes?"

She wrinkled her nose, almost as if the suggestion made her ill. Considering the cough that finally followed, it probably wasn't that far from the truth. "Of course not. I work at Mitchell's. It's good enough work, don't you think, Emma?"

Emma had been watching the exchange between Jack and Stress with interest—especially the way Stress seemed to go red to match the heat in her voice—and was surprised when she heard her name being mentioned.

"You work at _Mitchell's_?"

"I had to do something while I looked for you, Francis... Jack."

"Mitchell's, though? The shirtwaist factory?" Jack couldn't help but laugh—it was the only reaction he had. He never thought he'd be having this conversation with his sister. He never thought he'd have _any_ conversations with Emma again. "What do you do there?"

"I'm a cutter," she said proudly. "I get two dollars a week to cut the loose threads off of the fitted shirtwaists."

Stress sniffed in a perfect imitation of Mr. Matthews. "It's good work, better than bein' a newsie, I'd wager."

Jack looked over at Stress, staring straight into her eyes, amazed by how the green seemed to glitter madly against the red that stained her cheeks. Though she looked like she wanted to, she didn't turn away, meeting his stare with a heat that made Jack feel as if he'd done something wrong. Thinking back to the way she confronted him at the side of his table yesterday, he expected he had. But how was he supposed to know?

Delicately, so as not to let the Irish girl think she had won, Jack turned his head so that he was looking at his little sister again. He laughed awkwardly for no other reason than he wasn't really sure what he should say next. "I... I can't believe you're here. I can't believe you're _alive_." Mimicking her gesture from earlier, Jack ran his hands through his greasy brown hair, then rubbed the back of his neck, folding his hands behind his head. "When everything happened, when you disappeared, I never thought I'd see you again. You was gone, I had no idea where you'd gone. No one did, not even fat Mrs. O' Leary. Remember her, Em?"

A fuzzy memory of a big, loud woman with too many children hovered at the edge of Emma's memory. "Didn't she have six children to care for?"

"Five," Jack said, pleased that she had remembered, and just a little satisfied that she had passed his test. "And no husband in sight."

This time Emma allowed herself a relieved giggle. She wasn't really sure what she had expected from Francis when, not if, she found him again—which was one of the reasons she had run away from him last night. Would he remember _her_? Would he want to be bothered by a sister almost four years younger, one he hadn't seen since she was eight years old? It was like the weight of the world off was of her shoulders just to hear him mention their time together. It meant he _accepted_ her.

But something he said bothered her. Maybe she had been naïve not to wonder why she'd been taken away and not Francis, maybe she'd always assumed he'd left _her _behind, but to hear him say that he didn't know where _she _had gone, somehow that made some of her relief ebb away.

"It was Aunt Moira," Emma told him, sure he had to know that already. "She came and brought me with her to Erie."

"Who?"

That was exactly what she was afraid he was going to say. "You must know her, Francis," she said, lapsing back into calling him by his real name. Though he seemed to cringe, she kept on talking: "She's our father's sister."

"I don't understand." And then, more stubbornly, "'Sides, I ain't got a father."

"Yes, you do," Emma insisted, "and that's why I've come." Her earlier smile was eerily missing now as, at last, she could finally tell her brother the reason she had tricked her aunt and come all the way to New York, taking a job in a factory all in an effort to find Francis again: "Father, he's been writing her."

"To this aunt of yours?"

"Aunt Moira is your aunt, too, and yes. She had letters from him. I read them," Emma admitted boldly, and Jack thought there was Sullivan spunk in her yet before wondering if that was perhaps wasn't such a good thing. "He wants to see us, Francis. We have to go!"

"No," Jack said flatly. "And my name is _Jack_."

"No?" Emma repeated, ignoring what he had added; his refusal had cut her right to the quick before something so silly as what he wanted to call himself when she knew very well his name was _Francis_. She couldn't believe he had turned her down like that! After everything she'd done to get to him, he'd told her _no_?

He shook his head. If having a little sister again meant having to have that bum for a father again, Jack wasn't so sure that he really envied David his family all that much. "I'm sorry, Em, but I won't do it. I've spent the last six, seven years on my own with no help from him. Why the hell should I visit him now?"

"Because he's going to die soon, that's why."

That wasn't what Jack had been expecting. "_What?_" Not that he could say that it really hurt him as such—it didn't, he'd thought of his real father as dead, or good as, ever since he was sent off to Sing Sing—but how in the world did Emma know that?

"I told you," and the earnestness in her voice made petite Emma Sullivan look much older than her fourteen years, "he's been writing Aunt Moira. I saw the letters. He said that if it was the last thing she did for him, he wanted her to bring us to him. I had to find you. We have to go, Francis."

"He could be lyin'," Jack said flippantly. He felt his heart speed up as, in that moment, he saw his sister for the first time: not the eight-year-old little girl he lost, but the young woman she had grown into. He had the urge to turn away, he had the urge to _run_, and only six years of repressed guilt kept him from fleeing. "Lyin' runs in the family, you know."

"Yes, but I had hoped that selfishness hadn't."

Jack opened his mouth to answer, discovered he had nothing to say because, well, she was right, damn it, and shut his mouth again. Emma, holding fast against her disillusionment, just looked up at her brother, her wide, brown eyes watching him intently, waiting for him to prove her wrong.

And that was when Stress let out a cough that broke up the air of tension that settled over the two of them.

With her whole attention occupied by her brother and the fact that, after six years, she was standing with him again, Emma hadn't noticed it when Stress backed away, leaving the two Sullivans alone to talk. She disappeared somewhere around the first mention of their Aunt Moira and missed most of the conversation that followed. When she came back, the sounds of the coughs she no longer had to hide heralding her re-appearance, she noticed that the atmosphere surrounding Emma and her brother was nothing like the way she had left it. Sparing one quick moment to what had transpired between them while she was gone, she went back to Emma's side and tapped her on the shoulder.

Emma, who hadn't noticed Stress leaving at all, gave a small jump and then tried to pretend that she hadn't. "Yes, Stress?"

"Emma," she said urgently. "We should be going."

Emma felt her stomach drop. She didn't want to leave her brother, not when she'd only just gotten him back. "Already?"

Stress nodded. "I checked the time. It's just about ten now. If we hurry, we'll make it."

"Ten o'clock curfew?" Jack asked. "You're lodging at Bottle Alley?" It was well know that the Girls' Home had curfew at ten, a whole hour earlier than the Newsboys' Lodging House, and for good reason, too. While Bottle Alley and the nearby streets and their slums weren't anywhere near as bad as they had been in years past, it was still a place he didn't think any young girl should be wandering around on her own. Especially, he thought a little uncomfortably, his _sister_.

Emma nodded. "I tried to get inside your lodging house so I could find you there," she told him, pulling at her short hair again. "It obviously didn't work."

"Obviously," agreed Jack with a slight smirk. Suddenly, Kloppman's story of a young girl looking for a Francis Sullivan made a whole lot more sense—and certainly explained why her appearance had triggered all those buried memories and emotions within Jack.

"Emma..."

"I know. I'm coming." Emma turned to Jack. "Why don't you meet me behind your lodging house tomorrow. At nine?" Emma looked over her shoulder at Stress. The older girl nodded. "At nine. I'll tell you about everything. Maybe then you'll change your mind."

_Everything_, he thought in surprise. _There's more_?

It was all happening so fast, Jack's head was blurring with the speed of everything that was happening. Emma was there. She was in New York. She was _alive_. His sister was standing right before him, having against all odds found him again, and she was telling him about an aunt he'd never known and a father he had tried to forget long ago.

And now, when he had her again, she was leaving.

"No," he said, already too late, "don't—"

But Emma was already being pulled away from. Stress had a hold on her arm and was gently towing her away, which left his sister to look over her shoulder and smile brightly with a touch of a lingering apology tucked in the corner. "Tomorrow, Francis! I promise!"

* * *

><p>- <em>stress, 08.04.11<em>


	14. thirteen: cabbage special

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER THIRTEEN;<strong>

They just made it back to the Bottle Alley Home that night.

Stress was out of breath, clutching a stitch in her side. Emma urged her on, taking the older girl's hand as they drew closer to the old Mulberry Bend, pulling her forward, reminding them both what fate was in store for them if they arrived at the Home one minute past ten o'clock. And despite Emma's blissful ignorance of New York as a whole, despite Stress's far-too-many years living on the streets, neither one of them was brave enough to dare being caught on the other side of that flower-adorned door.

Mrs. Cook was waiting on the stoop, a disapproving purse to her lips. She shook her head but, seeing as how the girls managed to arrive with a handful of minutes to spare, she didn't say anything as Stress, offering a cheeky grin Mrs. Cook knew only too well, took hold of Emma's hand this time and led her inside. She didn't let go until they had gone past Mrs. Cook's empty desk at the end of the narrow hall, flitting down the next one that would lead them upstairs—and only then because she needed to cover her mouth as she tried to stifle the newest wave of coughs.

Stress paused at the foot of the steps; she didn't move just yet, not even when her coughs had finished. With both palms against the knees of her skirt, she took in great big gulps of air as if that last sprint and the following fit had stolen the rest of it from her lungs.

Emma watched tentatively from the shadows, flinching when the hacking started and hesitantly approaching Stress after they had finished. Francis' surprise at seeing her, his guarded expression, the meeting they arranged for the the next night at nine... it was all dancing around Emma's mind, desperate to be paid any attention. And though she knew it was quite possibly the worse moment for it, she walked over to Stress and tugged at the hem of her blouse.

"Um, Stress," she said, her voice a mere squeak as Stress turned to look over at her with watery eyes, "do you think you're going to be able to go to the factory tomorrow?"

Stress smiled weakly, straightening back up at last. "A herd of stampedin' buffalo couldn't keep me away." Up close she appeared more tired than Emma would've expected from her but, rubbing the moisture away from the corner of each of her eyes, the Irish girl tried to hide it as best she could.

"And... and after?"

"Ya mean, with your brother?"

Emma nodded, biting down gently as she did.

"If you want me to go with ya," Stress told her, "I will."

"Really?"

"Aye, you bet." She sounded a little bit better; at the very least, her voice no longer held the rasp it had when she was struggling to reclaim her breath. Stress gave her head of wild curls a shake and, as if it wasn't as daunting as it was, she started up the steps, taking them two at a time. "Now, up ya get, Em. Mrs. Cook will be on any minute now and it's more than your Jack Kelly is worth to be caught out of bed when our fair matron looks like she's been suppin' on sour lemons." And she grinned.

Relief flooded through Emma at the sight of that supportive smile, relief that she still had a friend to help, and pride... yes, pride that she had done it. She'd found her brother! She'd spoken to Francis! He remembered her! Emma Sullivan couldn't swallow her grin or, as she started after Stress like a doting puppy dog following a new mistress, keep her giggle back.

_Mrs. Cook, sucking on lemons like they were lollipops_... Emma couldn't help it.

"She half didn't," she agreed, letting loose a bubble of laughter so contagious that even Stress managed a quick wheeze of a chuckle as they made their way to room three, "did she?"

* * *

><p>Jack had hoped to avoid David again the morning after he met Emma. He had hoped to buy his papers from that new window man down at the distribution center and then, after improving the headlines as best as his poor muddled brain could handle just then, maybe sell as many as half of a hundred. Then, if everything went according to plan, he would see what he could do about a bite for lunch, maybe catch a boxing match or two down at the ring before picking up enough of the evening edition to keep his mind off of the meeting he was planning on having at nine that night.<p>

What's more was that he had hoped to do that all on his own. The last thing he wanted—no, _needed—_was David chirping in his ear with everything else he had on his mind. Besides, how hard would it be? David wasn't supposed to be out selling in the morning any way and not even all the money ol' man Pulitzer had would've been enough to entice him to step foot inside Tibby's again for lunch just yet. Jack had managed to stay out of David's sight yesterday, after all. What was one more day?

Of course, that was assuming that David didn't mind being avoided. Jack should've known better than that—

"_There_ you are, Jack. Would you believe I've been looking for you everywhere? Morning."

"They're already on the fourth match, Davey," Jack said by way of greeting, anxiously popping sunflower seed after sunflower seed into his waiting mouth as he watched the fight in front of him. "It's gotta be well past one by now. It ain't mornin' no more." He spat the shells out indeterminately as he spoke, never once turning to look over his shoulder at David.

He didn't need to. With a couple of mumbled "Excuse me"'s and a gentle elbow into the side of the elderly gentleman sitting next to Jack in the front row seats surrounding the makeshift boxing ring, David found a small opening being presented right beside Jack. Wiggling in, he took it, too late to notice the scowl that marred Jack's face.

David wore a look of bright earnestness as he turned to face his friend. "No wonder it's afternoon, I spent my whole morning trying to find you."

"Didja?"

"Well, yes. I tried to meet you down at the distribution center but obviously I was too late. I caught Race and he mentioned you might be selling your papers over in Central Park. It's beautiful out and I didn't mind the walk, but if you'd gone that way, I missed you again. I couldn't think where else to go, Tibby's was empty when I peeked my head in, so I was on my way to Ms. Medda's when I saw you sitting right here. Must be nice, watching the fight without worrying about Warden Snyder."

Yeah, thought Jack, but it would be even nice to watch it without David Jacobs, Walking Mouth, talking in his ear.

Like a bee buzzing right beside him, David kept on chatting; Jack heard the slightly disapproving tone that meant that David thought he was in trouble, followed by the unwelcome mention of Sarah's name and pointedly tuned David out. One of the sunflower seed shells got stuck between his back teeth and he busied himself with trying to poke it out with his tongue. It took half a frustrating minute to get it loose and by the time he had spit the offending shell out, he realized that all he could hear was the cheering, goading crowd and the grunts from the fighters.

"Where's Les?" Jack asked, taking advantage of David's momentary silence to change the subject; Les was David's shadow, always there behind him wherever his older brother went. His attention seemingly captivated by the bloody, sweaty one-sided fight going on in front of him, Jack didn't have to look around for Les. There was no need. If Les was there, he would've piped up by now—especially since David had finally shut up.

If David was annoyed by Jack's interruption, he didn't show it; maybe he was used to it. Either way, he simply said, "He's at home with Mama. He told me if I found you that he says hello."

"Good kid," muttered Jack, nodding to himself. "You'll tell him hey back from me, won't ya?"

"Why don't you tell him yourself?"

"'Cause ya just told me he ain't here." Jack finally tore his gaze away from the short, portly man currently being pummeled by the strapping youth who seemed to be enjoying the fight more thoroughly than he should. "You okay, Davey? The heat ain't doin' nothin' funny to ya?"

"I assure you, Jack, that I'm perfectly fine. I know exactly where my brother is, and that's with Mama... but that wasn't what I meant anyway. Maybe now that I have your attention you'll actually hear what I _was_ saying."

It really bothered Jack when David spoke to him like a child. It was all he could do not to pout—or, considering the rush he experienced and the urge he got to ball his very hands into fists and swing whenever he stopped to watch the fights, just punch David right in his chin. He knew that it was his nerves acting up on him and, after splitting a seed or two in half if only to have something to do with his fingers, he was calm enough to say, "Go on."

As if David needed Jack's permission. Frowning, his big blue eyes narrowed on the profile Jack was presenting him with again, he blurted out: "Sarah was wondering if you'd like to come over for supper tonight."

"I can't."

"Why not?" Thinking of his sister's worried expression from that morning, the way she implored him to find Jack and discover what was keeping him away from their home for so long, David added, "Why don't you want to see Sarah?"

"I just saw Sarah," Jack reminded him. "At Tibby's, two days ago. Remember? Me and you and Les and Sarah, we all shared dinner then."

"She wants you to come by the apartment," David explained. "You've often shared bread with our family, and I don't see what's stopping you from coming back. Unless, of course, there's some reason why you're staying away..."

Jack Kelly was a practiced liar. He could look you in the eye and swear up and down that they sky was green, the ocean yellow and the clouds raining down gumdrops and you would be hard-pressed from running to the window to check. And yet, in the weeks since David Jacobs—honest to a fault—had gotten to know him, he'd managed to pick up on the little things that warned him when Jack was going to lie. First and foremost being any time Jack opened his mouth to answer any question he didn't like.

"N—"

"There is a reason, isn't there?" David said, before Jack even had the chance to finish the word.

Jack gave one second's thought to trying to convince David to the contrary before realizing correctly that he would never pull it off. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I believed your story about Roosevelt's carriage."

"Eventually," Jack pointed out.

"Yes," agreed David, "though I _did_ believe you."

Jack could see that David wasn't going to drop it. He huffed and pushed the front locks of his hair away in annoyance. "Look, I ain't in the habit of tellin' people all about my troubles."

"But I'm your friend, Jack."

"Alright." Jack dropped his handful of sunflower seeds to the dirt and, scooping up the last couple of _World_'s he hadn't been bothered to sell when this last match started, got to his feet. "But not here. Come on," he said, and climbing over the back of the seat before trying to slip out of the next row, he hardly checked behind him to see if David was coming; from another hurried set of apologies and stifled mutters from the men in the front seats, he already knew.

Just as he landed with a hop on the cobbles, Jack heard the thud as the portly man dropped, the roar of the crowd that followed, the ding of the bell... he heard all of it, knew that the fight had ended and that he had missed it. Scowling again, not really sure why he was feeling so angry—or who, really, he was angry _at—_he led David away from the crowd and, once they were far enough that they could speak freely, Jack whirled on him.

David, too familiar with Jack's dramatics at times, his defensiveness and his innate tendencies to lie when it served him, he just raised an eyebrow and waited.

Jack exhaled, as if all the fight had gone out of him. Maybe if David had flinched or looked nervous is any way, he would've felt a little better about himself. "It's my sister, alright?"

It was obvious from the look of surprise on David's face that, whatever he had expected Jack to say, it certainly wasn't _that_. "A sister?"

"Yeah. Remember that girl that ran up to us in Tibby's?"

"Which one? The one that looked like a boy, or the one who looked like she wanted nothing more than to murder you?"

"The one that looked like a boy," sniffed Jack, "and I'll thank ya to remember that that's my sister Emma you're callin' a boy."

"Sorry, Jack," apologized David, his brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of what Jack was saying. It wasn't working. "It's just... _you_ have a _sister_?"

"Now ain't the time to become a parrot, Dave. Ain't that just what I said?"

David hardly heard the rising annoyance that colored Jack's voice. His thoughts immediately turned to Sarah, her warm brown eyes glossy with a hint of tears, the worried look she wore whenever she mentioned Jack. And all along it was just a _sister_... He let out a small laugh that only made Jack's expression darken. "But... oh, will Sarah be relieved. She thought you were—"

"She thought I was _what_?"

"You know how silly girls can be. She thought you might be going after someone else."

The idea _was_ silly, but why did Jack's traitorous mind fling up an image of Emma's new friend? Jack's scowl deepened, a feat he wouldn't have imagined was possible before David hunted him down and managed to get Jack to confess about Emma. His stomach tied up in knots, his fingers still itching to be balled into fists, Jack remembered Emma's earnestness and the red stain to that girl, that Stress's face as she argued with him last night. Far from wanting to see Sarah for supper that evening, some part of him wondered if Emma would bring Stress back with her tonight.

Some part of him kind of wanted her to—

"So, tell me about this sister." And then, because David couldn't help himself, "Was she out west, waiting on the ranch for you, too?"

Though David didn't know what sort of thoughts he was interrupting, the fact that he had interrupted them at all—and with a wisecrack like that—just made Jack even angrier. "You know what?" he spat out. He should've known better than to tell Davey anything about Emma. "Forget it."

David immediately knew that he had said the wrong thing. He held up his hands, trying to calm down his friend as quickly as he could. "No, Jack," he said, and there was a soothing lilt to his voice that was a total contrast to the way Jack had just spoke to him, "I was just kidding. Tell me about this sister of yours. I'm sure it'll make you feel better to get it off your chest."

All in all, it was too little, too late.

"Yeah, I doubt that," huffed Jack, tucking his forgotten newspapers under his arm. The way he was feeling, the anxious anticipation he had for that night coupled with the irrational annoyance he experienced with David's appearance, Jack would've rather eat the damn papes than try to sucker another customer into buying one. There was no way he could even pretend to be charming, and any smile he could conjure—far from being as sweet as butter—would've spoiled fresh milk, the mood he was in.

"Ja—" he began but it did no good. Jack Kelly was storming away, his boots smacking against the cobbles, drowning out the rest of David's voice, "—ck?"

Jack never turned back around. The crowd swallowed him up as easily as if he were coated in oil, which left David behind, wondering how much of what he'd been told was true, and if that girl with the boy's hair—Les's new friend, perhaps, he suspected—really was Jack Kelly's younger sister.

* * *

><p>That afternoon Jack refused to give the late edition of the newspaper a chance. He was too antsy to come up with any believable "improvements" and, more than anything, he didn't want to run into David Jacobs again. So, after a few more hours wandering around the city on his own, killing time, Jack found himself strolling up to the back entrance of the lodging house somewhere around eight o'clock.<p>

The anger was gone. Somewhere along Canal Street it was replaced by resignation and, if he was being honest with himself, a touch of resentment that was nearly overshadowed by his curiosity. The handful of minutes he had with Emma last night had only opened questions, it hadn't answered any of them. Though every bit of the Jack Kelly he was screamed at him to forget about the upcoming meeting, he knew he would have to go.

It was almost time. But first...

He slipped in through the back, prepared for the gentle ribbing from the supervisor; very rarely did Jack return to the lodging house so early. He was in for a surprise, though: Kloppman wasn't at his post. The desk was empty. Feeling that he'd caught a lucky break for the first time that week, Jack quirked a small smile and hurriedly took to the stairs.

His luck didn't quite hold out as he entered the bunkroom. While it wasn't as filled as it would be come closer to curfew, there were plenty of the fellows lounging in their bunks, swapping stories, playing cards, and washing up for bed because there wasn't anywhere for them to go—or anyone, thought Jack, to secretly meet on the back side of Duane Street. He waved his hand in response to the greeting and the welcome he received but didn't stop to talk to any of the boys. Instead, with an air of purpose about him that he didn't bother to hide, he headed right over to the row of water closets and, after appearing to deliberate which one he wanted to use, reached out his hand for the one on the right.

Jack let himself inside of the toilet stall, holding his breath when he realized that someone must've just left it—and, from the stench of it, Blink had been eating the cabbage special over at Tibby's for lunch again. Still, it was a small price to pay for privacy and, after a few seconds where he peeked through the crack to make sure no one was looking his way, he squatted down to the floor and ran his ink-stained fingers along the floorboard until he found the one he was looking for.

Feeling a little light-headed from the lack of air, Jack breathed shallowly through his mouth as he pried up the floorboard behind the toilet; the wood was warped yet pliable, and it gave way with only the slightest bit of force. There was a tin stowed underneath, a tin wide to fit the gap, and he pulled it out easily before rising to his feet, just a little desperate to get his face away from the toilet.

There wasn't much inside the rectangular box: a marble Spot Conlon gave him as a sign of friendship; a piece of lace Sarah tatted that carried her scent; an old, moldy rag doll that he'd carried with him from that hovel he once called home. Each one was a treasure to Jack but not what he was looking for. A couple of saved up dollars and a few coins were scattered on the bottom of the tin. Brushing those aside with the flat of his hand, he revealed a photograph nestled face-down against the container.

It had been years, two, maybe three of them since he looked at this photograph last. Jack hadn't needed to; just knowing it was near was enough, and looking at it brought the unwanted memories back. Even then, he didn't really want to look at it. In his mind's eye he could see the four people featured in the sepia tones: a man, his wife, a son and a daughter. The Sullivans. Jack glanced at it only long enough to make sure it was the right image before getting to work.

Slowly, carefully, he ripped it right down the middle. The young girl and the man on one side, the boy and his mother on the other. With grim satisfaction, Jack replaced the half featuring his mother back into the tin. The other half he placed between the pages of his Western Jim pamphlet.

If you asked him why, he couldn't tell you. Maybe it was because Emma had reappeared so suddenly last night with unwelcome news of a father he wanted to forget; maybe because, of them all, Margaret Sullivan was the only one left to mourn, the only face he wanted to save. Either way, once the picture was separated, a feeling of peace washed over him. He even dared a small smile as he flattened the old rag doll back into place and restored the tin's lid to the top.

Just then someone banged on the door to the stall. "C'mon, Cowboy! Didja fall in there, or what?" It was Race. "I gotta go."

"There's two other stalls," Jack reminded him, stooping slightly and slipping the tin back into its hidey-hole.

"Yeah, but Tumbler messed with one, and I got a thing about usin' the one in the middle. 'Sides, I like that one. The flusher works the best in there and I ate lunch with Blink and Mush today."

Ah, Jack thought, the cabbage special all around.

"Hold your horses, Race. I'll be out in a minute," Jack called, hurriedly putting the piece of the floorboard back in place. He stood up quickly, pressing down on it with the heel of his shoe. There. No one could ever tell that's where he kept his treasures.

He heard some of the other boys making wisecracks, laughing and teasing—something about warning Race not to take that stall considering how long it had been occupied—and, for once, he didn't feel like one of them. It was like, with Emma's arrival, who he was—Jack Kelly—was quickly being replaced by who he'd been, and who could be again. Francis Sullivan... he spit in the toilet. Hell no.

Adopting a proud expression as he marched out of the stall, teasingly pushing Race aside as he pretended to sway and fall faint from Blink's foul aroma—Jack had no choice but to take credit for it—he started for the door.

Kid Blink called out to to Jack with a sly wink as he went past his bunk, Skittery offered to share a smoke—that alone was nearly enough to entice Jack to stay in the bunkroom—but he waved his hand behind him and headed out through the door before any of the other boys could stop him or ask him where he was going. The newsies were a nosy bunch and Jack didn't want his secret getting out any further than David.

There was still plenty of time until nine o'clock, until Emma promised she would arrive, but Jack was too antsy to stick around inside the lodging house. He took the stairs with every intention of heading right out back again to wait—

—except, as he got halfway down the steps and an unfamiliar voice reached him, he froze. He squatted again, lowering himself so that he could get a better look downstairs without having to reveal himself. Kloppman, Jack saw, was back at his desk. And he wasn't alone.

There was an old broad standing in front of Kloppman, wearing a hat with so many feathers in it Jack expected she'd plucked a gaggle of geese to make it. She wore fancy, studded gloves on her hands that she waved energetically, over and over again, because she didn't seem to want to stop talking. Jack glanced at Kloppman, surprised to find that instead of the bemused expression he expected to see, Kloppy was actually listening to her in rapt attention.

Something warned him from interrupting that scene. Without another thought, he slowly went back upstairs. There was another staircase at the end of the second floor, one that was rarely used by the newsboys, who, as a rule, preferred the anonymity of the back entrance. The spare stairs would lead him towards the front of the lodging house. Just managing to avoid running into Swifty as the other boy was coming out of the bunkroom, Jack hurried towards the other side of the building before dancing down the steps as if they burned his feet.

Jack slipped out through the front door, intent on avoiding Kloppman and the woman, figuring he would just nip around the back. He doubted such a high-bred lady would dare going out the back door. In fact, he could hardly believe she would step foot in through the _front_.

And then, even though he knew he shouldn't, he stood with his hand holding tightly to the lamp post, ready to wait for his sister.

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: I know it's been forever and a day since this was updated but, well, things have been really hectic around here. Add that to the fact that I wanted to finish _Red_/start _Cyan_, and this poor story fell to the wayside. Of course, this chapter was one of the barely started ones; the next two are nearly complete already!

If you've stuck around this long, I'm really glad and extremely appreciative - and I'd like to finish it fairly quickly. I'm going to see the new Newsies! musical this weekend as an early birthday present, and I'd like to get the next chapter out about the same time. Here's hoping ;)

And, in case it wasn't obvious, we've finally hit the part where the prologue comes in to play. After that the end is in sight!

- _stress, 09.22.11_


	15. fourteen: doctors

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER FOURTEEN;<strong>

While Jack Kelly was preparing to meet Emma in the back street behind the Newsboys' Lodging House, Emma Sullivan was standing in room three of the Bottle Alley Home for Girls, trying her best to wake Stress up.

Because she had made a promise to meet with Jack on Duane Street at nine, there had been no reason to go to Tibby's after her shift at the shirtwaist factory ended. Then again, since Stress had been plagued by her coughs for the first time since the week began and Mr. Matthews, losing his patience, sent her home the instant the first fit exploded out of her, Emma wouldn't have gone to Tibby's anyway. No, not without Stress to push her in through the door again.

Instead, finishing the last of her cutting duties mere seconds before Mr. Matthews rang the dismissal bell, Emma picked up the folds of her skirt, patted her cream-colored bow just once to ensure that it was still there, and then hurried back to the Girls' Home as quickly as she could. Pepper invited her out to supper, Florence even grunted that Emma's company would be favorable, but she declined graciously before scurrying all the way back to Bottle Alley, intent on seeing Stress.

Except the moment she burst into the nearly empty room three and found Stress sleeping with her face buried in her pillow, Emma couldn't even think of waking the older girl up. After lowering her ear to the back of Stress's head and contenting herself with the knowledge that Stress was still breathing—the snores were muffled against the pillow but they were still _snores_, despite how much Stress might protest otherwise—Emma backed away slowly and went to sit on her bunk, waiting for Stress to wake up on her own or until eight o'clock, whichever came first.

At first it was just Emma, tensed and waiting on the edge of her bed, and the still slumbering Stress in room three. As the late afternoon gave way to early evening and some of the other girls started straggling in, Emma made it a point to shush each and every one of them, gesturing to Stress as she did. The Irish girl was probably one of the only lodgers to command the rest of the respect of room three and, almost surprisingly, none of the others spoke any louder than was necessary. And, maybe taking advantage of that, the two or three girls who came in turned in just as quickly until the only one awake in the mid of a sea of contented snuffles and even more snores was Emma.

Too antsy and too excited to meet Francis again, Emma couldn't even close her eyes for a minute, let alone take a rest. Still, the quiet was peaceful and after far too many long days at the shirtwaist factory, she thought her fellow garment workers deserved a break.

There was a clock at the end of the second-floor hall, a grand old grandfather clock that was battered and nicked but a faithful timekeeper. It tolled the hour every hour, great big gongs that Emma had gotten used to out of necessity; her first night in the Home, she'd woken up every time it ranged and slept all the heavier for it the next night. When eight loud chimes told her that it was eight o'clock and Stress still hadn't even stirred yet, Emma began to second-guess her plan of waking her up with the result being that, by the time she got up the nerve to climb out of her bunk and tiptoe over to Stress's, she had no idea how much later it was. She only hoped that it wasn't too close to nine o'clock yet.

As gently as she could, Emma gave Stress's shoulder a little shake. "Stress?" When there was no answer, she shoved a little more roughly, whispering her name again. There was a small grunt, different enough from the snores to prove that maybe Emma was getting somewhere, so she gave one last push. "Stress!"

"Go away," came the garbled reply.

"Stress... won't you wake up?"

"Unh. Why?"

_Why?_ Fearing that Stress may have forgotten the meeting planned for that night, Emma tried to explain. "It's already past eight—"

"Yeah," called a groggy voice from the other side of the room. Pepper, it seemed, had woken up too. "And she ain't the only one turnin' in early. Can ya keep it down?"

"Sorry, Pep," Emma apologized automatically, lowering her voice. Leaning in, she tried to brush Stress's loose, matted curls aside so that she could see her face. She flinched when the side of her hand swiped along Stress neck—the skin was clammy and damp, and even paler than usual. Her stomach flip-flopped. "Stress... _Stress_!" It was a whisper now, sure, but there was no denying the urgency. "Wake up, _please_. Are you alright?"

"Just a minute more, miss. Aye, and I'll be right as rain then."

But Emma didn't feel as if she had a minute to wait; if she thought that even an hour would make Stress better, she would've bided her time but something told her that it wouldn't work. Grabbing Stress by the arm, she gave a pull that caused the other girl to move at last, rolling on her side. Her strange eyes glittered like mad, her lips pouted in annoyance at being disturbed, though Emma hardly noticed. As it was, she couldn't get past the watery, red-rimmed eyes or the glaze that made the green glassy. Dark circles pouched the skin underneath which made Stress's face look ashen and sickly.

Emma gasped; she couldn't keep it back. Stress just blinked. "A little beauty sleep never hurt no one," she murmured tiredly.

"You look awful..."

"Thanks, Em. Remind me to come wake you up after you've been out for a coupla hours, yeah, and we'll see how you come off."

"No, it's just—" Emma paused, trying to find better words for her surprise as Stress's state. There were none. "I was going to wake you up, it's past eight now, but..."

Stress was already moving. Not quickly at all, barely wiggling as if she was struggling to throw her thin quilt away from her body, but the mention of the time had finally brought her around. "Alright, alright, I'm up—"

"No!" Emma's heart was pounding all of a sudden, the underside of her fingers slicked with Stress' sweat. The image of Francis's face—the Francis she remembered, not the guarded, streetwise newsie she met yesterday—flashed before her eyes but she banished it just as quickly.

What to do, what to do... and then she knew exactly what to do.

There was no choice then—Emma knew what the _right_ thing to do was, and, for once, it didn't have anything to do with her brother. She was wearing an old blouse of Florence's, one that was too large and swam on her petite frame; it was a peace offering if ever she saw one, one to make up for Flo's rude behavior when they first met and Emma wore it with pride. Without having to do the buttons, Emma plunged her hand down the front, fumbling for a few seconds before she pulled her money pouch out. She handed it to Stress. "Here. Take it. It's what I have."

"What is it?"

"Its yours now."

Stress was nothing if not curious, especially when little black pouches that had been hidden only a moment ago were suddenly thrust into her hands. Almost hesitantly, she pulled on the drawstring and peered inside, gasping when she caught sight of the coins that filled the pouch, rubbing her eyes as if she could hardly believe what she was seeing. "Lord almighty, I must still be dreamin'." With a loose tug, Stress pulled the string close, wasting no time in giving it back to Emma. "Where... where did you get that?"

"I _told_ you," Emma said, pushing the pouch back into Stress's hand. "My aunt has a lot of money. I brought some with me in case I needed it." She bit down on her bottom lip, feeling like a liar for never sharing that fact before but, just then, it didn't matter. "I never told... I wanted to keep it safe, I wanted to have to _need_ it."

Stress smiled weakly over at Emma. "A right smart move, Em. Brains, I always knew ya had 'em. I could tell from your short hair as easy as if I could see 'em." She tried to laugh but all that came out was a wet rattle that left Stress looking even more pale under her dusting of freckles.

"Don't laugh!" Emma ordered, aware that she had raised her voice again but, this time, Pepper didn't bother rebuking her for it.

"Life ain't worth livin' if there ain't a bit of laughter in it."

Emma's panic was rising deep within her chest making it as hard for her to breathe as it was for Stress to laugh. This scene was too eerily familiar to her. Even though she was only eight when her mother had died, she remembered sitting up with her when Margaret struggled to finish washing other men's laundry in order to earn a couple of pennies for their family. Maybe that was why she took to Stress so easily in the beginning; maybe that was why she was so desperate to help her now.

She shook her head. "There won't be much life to live if you don't go get some help. Take the money. There's more than enough for you to go to a real doctor."

"I'm fine," Stress insisted. "Just a—"

"If you tell me it's a simple cough, so help me God, I'm going to get Mrs. Cook and have her drag you out of here! I'm certain this has got to be against one of her rules!"

"What, coughin'?"

"No," Emma hissed, her worries getting the better of her, "being a stubborn pig!"

Stress knew better than to try to laugh again. Nevertheless, her smile was a wistful one. "My da used to say it was an ass what was stubborn on his farm."

"Then you're being a stubborn ass, Stress!"

"Did anyone ever tell you you was a bit of a spitfire?" Emma looked at her with pleading eyes and Stress sighed. "How's this? I'll come with you to meet that brother of yours, then I'll sleep off the night in the sick rooms. What do ya say?"

"No."

"No?" Stress echoed. She hadn't expected that answer. "Why not? A night by meself might do me good."

"You don't understand. I'm not going to meet Francis—"

"Jack."

"Whatever he wants to call himself!" Emma snapped again. She felt terrible when Stress flinched visibly and, dropping to her knees at Stress's bedside, she reached out to lay her hand on the older girl's arm. It felt even warmer than before, as if she was burning up inside from fever, a thought that frightened Emma even further. "You gave me help when I needed it. I can always see my brother tomorrow. Please, Stress... I can't be sure that there will be a tomorrow left for you if you don't get help."

Stress frowned. There was no charade, no facade, and, if only for a moment, she let her guard down. It was difficult to drop the act, too difficult to let her worries show and realize that maybe, just maybe, she _did _need help. A street girl, on her own since she was thirteen, she wasn't used to having someone looking out for her—that was her job. She was the one who took Emma under her wing when the girl first showed up a little more than a week ago. She was the one who gave up her spare time to help her find Jack Kelly, even if Stress hadn't been so sure at first that that was the smartest move.

Why was Emma so willing to help _her_? No one helped her any more.

"Why are you doing this, Em?" Stress asked, her eyes sad. "You don't know me."

"Yes I do," Emma retorted. "As best as I can after a few days but, yes, I feel like I do know you."

Stress gave her a look of disbelief. "What's my name?"

"What?"

"My name," repeated Stress. Her voice was strangled as she fought back another cough, one that threatened to overwhelm her again. This was _important_.

Emma looked at her as if she was mad. "Your name is Stress," she said slowly, enunciating clearly in case Stress really had forgotten what she was called.

"No. My _real_ name."

It dawned on Emma at that moment that, though the whole of room three was quiet with the exception of her and Stress, it was _too _quiet. The snores had faded into a secret sort of consciousness and she suddenly understood why no more scoldings had come her way after the first: the other girls were as interested in this back and forth as she was. But none of them helped her with Stress's request and, stumbling over her words, Emma had to admit she didn't know.

"I... you never told me your real name. You said Stress was better than your Christian name. That's all."

"I know what I said. Still, you don't know it. There's a lot about me, dear Em, that you don't know. And it's the same, I daresay, with you." Stress managed a weak little smile as she pointed at the pouch she refused to take from Emma's outstretched hand. "I didn't know you had that money—"

Emma burst in with, "You can have it! Take it!"

Stress shook her head. "'S not what I meant. Just provin' my point. I know Jack Kelly is your kin. What 'bout me?"

"I don't understand what you're saying." Something about the bitter way Stress said Jack's name—only whenever she spoke of Jack Kelly did Stress ever sound less than light-hearted—made Emma think of the fierce way Stress regarded Jack, and just how at odds it seemed to be when she remembered how hurt Stress looked when they met outside of the lodging house last night. "Is it about my brother?"

"No. It's just... I don't get why you're gettin' so worked up over a cough."

"Because, ever since I got here, all you've done is get worse! And now, look at you: you're dying, Stress... I know you don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. I can tell." Emma stood up straight, looking straight into Stress's troubled expression with a look of confidence that she hadn't ever worn before her arrival in New York. "You say that you don't know me? Let me tell you. My name is Emma Sullivan. I was born in New York to Frank and Margaret Sullivan. Francis will always be my brother. But my father went to jail when I was seven and, though I didn't know it at the time, I watched my mother die from that same cough you keep insisting is nothing. I was only eight but I remember it like it was yesterday." There was a waver in her voice but endless lessons in deportment and speaking kept her going. "You ask me why I'm doing this? Maybe that's why. I don't want to watch another good person die. There was no money for Mama, no doctors then. I can help you now. I _want_ to help you now. But maybe I should turn the question back on you first. Why did you help _me_?"

Stress listened to Emma with a surprise that near stole her breath away. At first she didn't realize that Emma had asked her a question and it was only when Emma thrust the pouch of money back at her, still waiting fervently for Stress's answer, that the Irish girl's brain caught up with her ears.

"Because," Stress said, surprising herself and Emma both with how faint she sounded, "you needed it."

"And now you need it," Emma said stubbornly.

Stress rolled over in her bed and onto her back, hugging her pillow to her chest. Truth be told, the fact that her cough had—regardless of what she told anyone else—gotten worse instead of better these last few weeks... it had preyed on her mind endlessly, making her wonder if it was far more serious than she kept insisting it was. It hadn't started that fateful afternoon when Emma arrived at the Home after Mr. Matthews turned her away from the shirtwaist factory, even if it seemed like it had. But it _had_ only gotten worse...

Deep down, Stress suspected that that was the _real_ reason she was so ready to help Emma. It made her feel useful, it made her feel whole, and while she focused on Emma's troubles, she could forget her own. But like any other demons, they'd caught up to her at last and, as much as she didn't want to admit it, she hadn't been feeling so good lately. Maybe Emma was right. Maybe...

She sat up then—the energy it took caused beads of sweat to pop up along her brow that she pretended not to notice—and extended her free hand, turning it into a fist when Emma tried to place the small bag against her palm. It took Emma a moment to understand what Stress was really after and, switching the bag from her right hand to her left, she accepted Stress's hand in hers. The two of them shook, Stress unable to hide her small smile.

"It's nice meetin' ya, Emma Sullivan. My name is Jessa Rhian."

Emma wished her smile came without a tinge of sadness or the sense of urgency that was screaming for her to do something more for her friend. Except, maybe, this was exactly what Stress needed. "My pleasure, Jessa."

It was a nice moment, _real_, and it probably would've lasted longer if it wasn't for the wave of harsh coughs that came over Stress in that instant, racking her body and causing her to fold up on herself as if in agony, clutching the pillow tightly, holding on for dear life.

She took her hand back in time to cough right into it. When the fit was over—and it seemed to last even longer this time as Emma stood there helplessly, unable to do _anything—_and Stress pulled her hand away from her face, she had her hand open flat, palm up, and there was no denying the flecks of brownish-red that dotted her fair skin.

"What's that?" Emma asked at once. Her stomach sank. "That's not... that's blood, isn't it?"

Panic bubbled up in Stress's throat, sore and raw as it was, and she hurriedly wiped her palm against her sheets. She swallowed roughly, trying to push it down, and without really thinking about what she was saying, immediately began to tell Emma, "I'm fine, it's just—"

But Emma didn't give Stress the chance to brush it off. If Stress wasn't going for help herself, then Emma finally knew what she had to do instead. "Stay where you are!" she ordered, clutching the money bag inside of her fist. "I'll find go and find the doctor for you!"

And, before Stress could do anything except feel the tears welling up in her eyes, Emma was gone.

Taking care not to thunder down the steps too loudly, she realized close to the bottom that while her intentions were good, she had no idea where to go to get a doctor. But Emma wouldn't allow herself to be stumped for too long so, rather than just run right out into Bottle Alley, she headed for the hall that led down to the matron's desk, calling ahead of her, "Mrs. Cook?"

"Right here, dear."

Wisps of her iron gray hair falling free of its bun and hanging loosely in her face, Mrs. Cook had her head bowed over an open ledger on her desk, her pencil scritch-scratching against the page. She hadn't glanced up yet but as Emma approached, out of breath and slightly panting, she looked up curiously.

"Emma, what's wrong?" Somehow the old matron knew. Maybe it was because Emma had been rarely seen without the company of Stress standing over her like a bustling, clucking mother hen, or maybe it was because she'd had enough experience dealing with the lost and lonely girls who came to stay in her Home, but Mrs. Cook knew. A worrying look flitted to her blue eyes and she frowned. "It's Jessa, isn't it?"

It didn't surprise Emma that Mrs. Cook knew Stress's Christian name. She nodded urgently. "Yes, ma'am. It's her cough, it's gotten... bad," she finished lamely. How else could she explain it?

But she didn't have to. Absently, Mrs. Cook started pulling the drawers of her desk open, looking for something inside, murmuring to herself, "I have some elderberry syrup here somewhere if the stubborn lass'll take it—"

Emma shook her head though Mrs. Cook couldn't see her. "She needs a doctor!" In her opinion, Stress was too far gone to benefit from some herbal remedy.

Mrs. Cook wasn't used to her girls yelling at her. Her head shot up, intent on a good scolding before she caught sight of Emma's stricken face and it dawned on her what it was the young girl had actually yelled. "Emma," she began softly, her accent making the simple name a sad lull, "I can see you're worried but doctors are very expensive and—"

"I'll pay for it," Emma interrupted. And then, before Mrs. Cook could say anything else, she held up her money pouch and shook it. All of the coins inside jingled. "I just need to know what doctor to bring back."

A suspicious glint came to the old matron's eyes, almost like she had the worst idea about where that money had come from. Not like Emma could blame her—she'd only lodged there for a week, after all—but just then there was no time for inconvenient questions and long explanations for answers. So when Mrs. Cook started to say, "Where—", Emma cut her off with a pleading expression.

"Please, ma'am," and she could hear the desperation in her voice, "I promise it's mine and that, no, it's not stolen. I'll even tell you all about where I've come from if you'd just help me help Stress first."

Mrs. Cook pursed her lips; the hard look in her bright blue eyes softened slightly. Maybe she believed the girl, maybe she had enough concerns of her own to worry about a questionable pouch of money at the moment, but either way she nodded. "Wait right here," she instructed before bustling away.

As much as Emma wanted to run for help, to find someone who might be able to fix her friend, she didn't dare disobey the matron. So she waited, biting down on her bottom lip again in a nervous gesture, almost sure she could hear the racking coughs from room three up above. She had half a mind to hurry after Mrs. Cook and see what she had gone off to do but even that seemed like the wrong thing—was there ever a right thing in a situation like this, she wondered—and, hopping anxiously from one foot to the next, she leaned against the edge of Mrs. Cook's desk, pushing against the weathered wood as if she was pushing away all her nerves and her fears.

The first few moments were filled with tension and an unnatural quiet; it was almost as bad as the bunkroom had been. And then, somewhere above her, the grandfather clock began to ring. Emma subconsciously counted the nine gongs, knew that it was nine o'clock and that she wasn't there to meet Francis, and promptly decided that her brother would have to wait just a little longer. She was already _needed._

Emma didn't know how long Mrs. Cook was gone except that it seemed like an eternity. Civilizations could have risen and fallen in the time that it took for Mrs. Cook to come back—but at last she did, her normally kind face set into a determined expression as she came hurrying back over to the desk. She met Emma's worried stare and launched into speech.

"Mrs. Addiman is going to finish up with supper and tend to the other girls. Here," and Mrs. Cook handed Emma a slip of paper with a man's name and address scrawled on it in her precise handwriting, "this is the address for Dr. Fleming. He's the doctor we call on here whenever we have need for one and he's pretty good about coming to the Home no matter the hour. One of the only ones who'll brave Bottle Alley this late, I mean, so he's our best bet. A good man, too."

Emma accepted the slip gratefully. "I'll be back as soon as possible," she promised.

Mrs. Cook nodded. "And I'll move Jessa into the quarantine and make sure she's comfortable until you are."

"Thank you so much," Emma told her, sparing a small smile that the matron reciprocated before Emma had dashed away. As it was, she was halfway down the hall that led to the entrance before she paused and called back, "Oh, and Mrs. Cook? Don't let her laugh!"

If Mrs. Cook thought the request an odd one, or if she even responded to Emma at all, the young girl never knew it. Once the words were out she hefted the bulk of her skirt up so that she didn't trip on the hem and hurried for the door. She knew she should be worried some herself about chancing the alley after dark, especially on her own, but all she could think about was the too-white skin and the flecks of rusty red that stained Stress's palm. Just the memory made her stomach tighten and she glanced at Dr. Fleming's name quickly, praying that he could do something when she found him.

She curled her free hand around the doorknob, careful not to use the one that held onto the scrap of paper Mrs. Cook had given her. Flinging the door inward, Emma, so preoccupied with running for the doctor, went to run right out of the front door and instead ran right into the blue smock skirt of a woman who had been just about to knock.

She smelled the perfume first, noticed the fancy, heeled shoes that were still clean despite the city's futile attempts otherwise second, but it wasn't until Emma saw the gloves—the white gloves that hid her aunt's maimed hand—that she knew that she had been found out at last.

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: Well, I went and saw the new musical - a couple of times, actually, including tonight for the closing performance! - and while I adore it, focusing so much on the new material threw me for a loop when it came to my fanfics. It took a little bit to get back into the movie!canon and, well, I really want to get close to finishing _Fireflies _as possible before NaNo begins in two weeks. After this there's only 4 chapters left to this story (and then there's still all of _Cyan _left to do :P)

Let me know what you think!

- _stress, 10.16.11_


	16. fifteen: sarah

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

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><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER FIFTEEN;<strong>

That night was one of the worst ones Stress Rhian had ever spent in the four years since she'd come to lodge at the Bottle Alley Home for Girls. She could hardly rest, let alone sleep, and it wasn't only because of the coughing fits that were coming with even more regularity, leaving her feeling weak and drained whenever they were over. Mrs. Cook had done what she said and, right after Emma left, helped Stress into the quarantine rooms on the fourth floor. After bringing her a glass of water and leaving a wet washcloth on her feverish skin, the matron excused herself and returned to the lobby to sign in the rest of the girls still returning from the evening work.

But that was just it. The girls might have returned, but Emma didn't.

True, as shaky and as weak as she felt, as hard as it was to fall asleep and stay asleep, Stress closed her eyes on and off, hoping and praying that the next time they opened this new terrible sensation would've been nothing more than a bad dream. Despite the dark stretches of time that seemed to be happening in the blink of an eye—_Blink_. The sun was setting. _Blink. _It was pitch dark outside. _Blink_. The clouds were lightening brightly—Stress kept waiting for Emma, Emma and the help she promised to bring. Except, no matter how long she waited, there was still no sign of Emma, a doctor or that pouch of money she'd offered to Stress.

That simple black pouch weighed on Stress's mind nearly as much as the faint rust-colored splatters that still stained the palm of her hand. Call her naïve—and she might've spat at you if you did—but she never once suspected that Emma had carried so much loot around with her. Perhaps that was foolish; Emma hadn't hidden where she'd come from once, her rich aunt, fancy education and a real house a couple of states over from New York. Still, Stress was all but kicking herself for allowing the young girl to brave Bottle Alley on her own at night, a pouch full of coins clinking away in her hands. Emma was just begging to be robbed, Stress decided, and if anything happened to the girl, Stress had no one to blame but herself.

Guilt... that guilt was the main reason why she could barely get any rest at all.

By the time the morning sun was dawning, cresting out above the clouds, shining down on another New York Indian summer day, Stress had already given up on getting a good night's sleep. By propping herself up on her elbows, lying with her head against the wooden headboard, the coughs were kept at bay and without the coughs to worry about (for _now_) Stress was free to worry solely about Emma Sullivan. And because she wasn't the sort to sit back and worry when there could be something done about it, she started to come up with a plan.

A plan to find Emma and bring her back to Bottle Alley, safe and sound.

First things first, though: she knew she would have to be sneaky. Something told her that if Mrs. Cook caught her trying to head out on her own, she would insist that Stress head back into quarantine. And Stress understood. There was no denying her sickness now, try as she might, and Mrs. Cook did have the rest of the girls to look out for. Stress would never intentionally put any of the others in harm's way—which was exactly why she had to go look for Emma and make sure she hadn't been.

So, after Stress heard the faint gongs from the old grandfather clock two floors below, after she knew that even the latest of stragglers would be up and washed and halfway on their path towards the shirtwaist factory, and then _after _Mrs. Cook came in with a cup of tea and a fresh washcloth for her, Stress was ready to go, even if she didn't have a plan just yet. Using the damp washcloth to wash her face as best she could, Stress sipped the tea—it was the only breakfast she would get, and more than even she could stomach—and glanced around the quarantine room, looking for inspiration.

There wasn't much: a couple of beds, nearly all empty but ready and waiting should some sort of epidemic strike; a few beat-up nightstands to give the room a touch of life; a hatstand; one chipped mirror; and a pile of pillows and bedding tucked in one corner as a reserve. Stress chanced a small smile before setting her half-drunk tea on one of the nightstands and shuffling towards the stack of linens. She grabbed three pillows plus two extra sheets and, adding in the yellow kerchief she wore to keep her wild mane of curls tamed, went back to her bed.

A few minutes later and the three pillows became a sort of shapeless body, one of the sheets a hood and the kerchief some sign that Stress was still burrowed beneath the covers. The spare sheet she turned into a makeshift shawl, folded over and wrapped around the real Stress's shoulders. The tea might've been warm but her fever was blazing, sending a wave of chills down her arms, down her back, making her shiver all over though she pretended not to be notice.

Instead, slightly winded, she nodded at her handiwork. Mrs. Cook was a conscientious woman, but very busy. Stress knew full well that the matron would find the time to check up on her throughout the morning but it would probably be only a peek at most. This display should be more than enough to keep her satisfied until Stress recovered Emma, so long as she made it back before Mrs. Addiman finished supper. And, if she—and here Stress crossed herself fervently—_hadn't _found Emma by then... well, what was the point of coming back at all?

Because, well, Stress trusted Emma. Maybe it was stupid, but even a hardened orphan like Stress had to trust someone some time. The girl had seemed so insistent that she bring a doctor back to check on Stress and she hadn't—something must have happened to her. She remembered that the younger girl was supposed to meet up with her brother and despite Emma telling Stress that she wasn't going to go to Duane Street, that was the only place Stress could think to check.

Except, when Stress finally made it to Duane Street, slipping out slowly so that Mrs. Cook didn't notice and then taking her time so that she didn't aggravate her cough... by the time she arrived on Duane Street, _no one_ was there.

Well, no, that wasn't true. The streets were as busy as ever, men in their top hats, ladies in their bonnets, bare-footed children running wild and free, dogs and cats and rats scrounging for scraps and breakfast. But there was no sign of Emma, no sign of Jack even, and she scowled at her own shortsightedness. Why hadn't she realized that the lodging house would be empty by then? The shifts at Mitchell's Shirtwaist Factory started quite early and there were always plenty of newsies out on the street, hawking their headlines, selling their wares every morning as the Bottle Alley girls made their way over. Of _course_ the lodging house was empty.

But, just because there was no sign of two of her quarry, that didn't mean that Stress didn't see anyone who might not be any help—

There was a boy on the corner, a boy with grubby skin and a head full of tight black curls barely covered by his brown cap. She couldn't see his face too clearly since he was bent over, fiddling with the ends of a pair of laces down at his feet, but she saw the stack of two or three papers that he was standing on, keeping them from flying away in the early September wind, and knew he was a newsboy.

To Mush Meyers, simple Mush Meyers who was standing on the corner of Duane Street and Rose, tying up the matching laces on his brand new pair of shoes... to Mush, the sight of Stress advancing on him was like an avenging angel come to take him away.

"Jack Kelly?" she said, without any pleasantries or niceties at all. "Where is he? Do you know?"

And Mush couldn't help but wonder if all angels spoke with a strange garbled accent that sounded like she had a mouth full of marbles and a rasp that could only mean there was grit in her throat. Or, he thought, taking in the white sheet she still kept wrapped tightly around her shoulders and her skin which wasn't that much darker, maybe she was a spirit. Either way, he tried to be polite and when she started barking at him again, he really did try his best to pay attention.

Still, of it all, he only understood two words that she had said. "Jack?" he asked before he remembered himself and hurriedly removed his hat. "You mean Cowboy? Are you lookin' for him, miss?"

"He could be Cowboy or Jack Kelly or, hell, Francis Sullivan for all I care! Whatever damn name he's taken a fancy to, whatever it may be, I've got to find him. Where is he?"

Mush stumbled for the right answer. Like most newsies, Jack's selling spot wasn't fixed; fluid, it was, always changing, depending on the strength of the headlines, the way the wind was blowing and just how fast he managed to get out of the distribution center in the morning. But something told him that that wasn't the sort of answer this girl was looking for, so he simply said, "You can find him with Davey. That's who he's usually sellin' with."

"Davey?" she echoed.

"Yeah, Davey. 'Bout this tall," Mush said, holding his hand up a couple inches higher than his own head, "brown hair, blue eyes, big mouth. Looks like a schoolboy on account he goes to school when he ain't sellin' papes."

Davey, Stress mused to herself before recognition set in and she all but screamed inside her mind, David! That was his name! She thought back to three nights ago when she—and here she still felt a heat in her cheeks that had nothing to do with her lingering fever—ran out on Jack Kelly and his friend in Tibby's. The brown hair, the blue eyes, the know-it-all expression... Jack's sidekick from the strike, David. She remembered him! Her heart started to speed up, the sweat beading at her brow again, but she ignored it. This was a new lead! She could look for him and Jack and when she found them, she would make them tell her where Emma was.

She could do it!

But first one last question: "_Where_? Wheredo they sell?"

And, this time, Mush caught one sight of the fire blazing in her eyes and pointed down the street if only to give her some direction. He then waited until she wheezed out, "Thanks," before bending over and scooping up the rest of his papers. Crossing himself and praying to the Lord above, the Saints, even the kind nuns who handed out weak coffee and stale rolls in the morning, Mush decided it would be a good idea to find an entirely different corner to sell his papes just in case that specter, unable to find Jack, came back looking for _him_.

* * *

><p>Oh, that morning was <em>rough<em>.

There was a crick in Jack's neck that, no matter how many times he hit the spot where it pained him with his folded up fist, it still throbbed. He knew it was because he had fallen asleep sitting atop of the fire escape right outside of Sarah Jacobs' window and, courtesy of the way the warm late-summer days turned into cool almost-autumn nights, he'd picked up a chill that made his bones ache.

He hadn't slept all that well. The metal was hard and it was almost impossible to get comfortable. He didn't want to get too close to Sarah's window in case he frightened her and, instead, he had leaned against the railing on his left side. Jack's eyes were kept turned down and, more than once, the flickering yellow lights of the lingering fireflies below flashed on and off, catching his attention and reminding him over and over again of Emma—and how she had stood him up. He must've fallen asleep at some point, though, because he was sleeping when Sarah found him, but for all he knew Sarah could've picked that exact moment when he shut his eyes to open the window and, covering herself a bit shyly with the curtain, clear her throat.

Jack awoke with a start, remembered himself just in time to keep from falling off of the fire escape, and turned stiffly to find Sarah watching him with a wistful smile. And, just like he had hoped, she pointed up and, whispering so that she didn't wake anyone else in the apartment, told him, "I'll meet you on the rooftop."

He didn't need to be told twice.

The rooftop of the Jacobs' building was one of Jack's favorite haunts, a place to escape to when life on the ground level just got to be too much. With the plants, the flowers, the laundry line... it was a home away from home for him and Sarah, where they could talk together without Davey butting in or Mrs. Jacobs keeping a watchful eye on the pair. Jack took a deep breath as he waited for Sarah. The air smelled sweeter up there, as if he left the New York stink behind him. If only he could've left his troubles behind, too.

If only to have something to do with himself, Jack played idly with a sock that was hanging at the edge of the line. The tomato plants were still ripe and he smirked when he thought of the first time he'd had cause to follow Sarah Jacobs up to the rooftop. Though his stomach was growling, he didn't steal any to eat. Breakfast would have to wait and, as the minutes ticked past and Jack was standing alone in the center of the roof, he was also left to wait.

It seemed as if ages had past before he heard the rooftop's door creak open and there was Sarah. He could see why he'd been kept waiting: Sarah had stopped to change from her nightdress into a neat skirt and blouse set, wearing a cream-colored apron over the front. She had brushed her long brown hair neatly out of her face and, taking another settling breath, Jack thought he might have caught a fancy scent on the air. Perfume, he thought. Not only did she look beautiful, but the air was even better now that she had joined him up topside.

"I brought you something," Sarah said as she came to meet him, reaching inside of her apron pocket as she walked. She pulled out a peach, offering it to to him.

Jack took it gratefully, running his thumb along the curve of the fruit. The peach fuzz tickled his callused finger. He smiled. How did she know? "Thanks," he told her.

"You looked hungry. Did you even eat supper last night?"

Sarah's eyes held nothing but concern as she looked imploringly over at him. Jack thought back to yesterday and how he had spent most of his afternoon wandering around the city, desperate to avoid any of his pals, needlessly anxious about his upcoming meeting with Emma. He hadn't had the stomach to eat last night—though his belly was aching now and that fresh peach was looking delicious—and the least thing he'd chewed on was that handful of sunflower seeds he got during the boxing match down past Newsies Square.

Of course, he couldn't tell her that. He knew Sarah and he knew her mother. If he let slip that he'd been skipping meals and going hungry, the two Jacobs women would have him sitting at the table, all sorts of food piled up in front of him, whether he wanted to eat it or not. So he lied and said, "Uh, yeah. I stopped at this little dive last night and got a roast beef sandwich."

"Oh." For just a second Sarah looked defeated but she was her mother's daughter for a reason. She rallied nicely. "Well, anyway, I doubt you've had breakfast yet, so eat up."

Jack kept his peach rested neatly in the cradle of his palm. He had every intention of eating it—just not yet. "I will, Sarah. Promise."

Because, you see, he could tell that she had something to say and, though he was just looking for a little company and perhaps some quiet, Jack figured it would be better if they just got it over with already. He quirked his eyebrows over at Sarah but didn't say a word. He left that up to her, even though he could already hear it in his head.

Still, when she took a deep breath and said, "I've missed you," he wasn't all that surprised.

"Me, too, Sarah," he said, kneading the peach with his fingertips. "But I've been busy."

"Busy?"

His thumbnail bit right into the flesh of the peach, causing a dribble of sticky juice to trickle down into his palm. Jack ignored it. "Yeah. I can't always find time to play house, ya know. Not when I'm tryin' to figure out when my next meal is comin' from."

Jack hadn't meant to be so short with her but from the way her eyes widened and she took one hesitant step back, wrapping her arms around her waist, hugging herself... well, that was obviously how Sarah had taken it. She swallowed and, looking at a point just past Jack, said in a strangled sort of voice, "I... I understand."

"No... no, Sarah, it ain't like that. I didn't mean—it's just... hell," and his hand gave an involuntary squeeze on the fruit, bruising it instantly, "when did things get so complicated?"

"They didn't have to be."

"Don't mean they ain't," Jack mumbled.

Sarah forced herself to look him in the eye. He looked terrible, almost as bad as when she surprised him on the fire escape, and she felt her heart go out to him. "Jack, why did you come last night? I'm assuming you slept on the fire escape the whole time," she said and when he didn't interrupt her with any corrections, she continued, "and I can't say it wasn't a nice surprise to find you there, but I want to know why. You've been so..." She couldn't keep up the eye contact any longer and turned away, "...busy."

There was something in her voice—Sadness? Bitterness? Loss? Jack wasn't so sure—that made him feel like a louse. Just then, he wanted nothing more than to have one person who could rely on him. Emma was gone but Sarah... Sarah was right there. He moved towards her. "Because I wanted to see you," he told her.

"Really?" she said hopefully.

Jack reached out and took Sarah's hand with his free one. Her skin was even softer than the peach fuzz he could feel in his left hand, and warm. Sweet. For the first time that morning he smiled. "Yeah. I've been busy, I ain't gonna lie, but I shouldn't have been too busy for you. And I don't think I'm gonna be anymore."

"You mean that?"

And Jack surprised himself by nodding. "Yeah, I do."

They stood there together, holding hands, basking in the early September sun, the slight breeze causing Sarah's skirt to wave and Jack's hair to flap in his face. Still, they were happy and content, neither one pulling away from the other, not even when one, long greasy strand fell right into one of Jack's bloodshot eyes—he hadn't slept so well—or when the front of Sarah's apron fluttered and got tangled in on itself.

So when, after a few quiet moments together, she gave a small start and pulled her hand back and away from him, Jack looked over at her questioningly. "Something wrong?"

"I think I heard Mama calling for me." Sarah bit down on her bottom lip, tucking a long strand of her hair behind her ear. "Will you..."

Jack nodded. "I'm not goin' anywhere just yet, Sarah."

She gave him a smile that seemed to be more out of relief than anything else and, the hem of her skirt dancing in the breeze, Sarah went out onto the landing of the stairs before hurrying down, back to her apartment. Jack took the time to placate his grumbling stomach by turning his attention to breakfast. Chewing thoughtfully on the peach she had brought him, he turned his back on the exit to the rooftop and leaned his forearms against the ledge, looking down on the city below.

They were like ants. This far above, all Jack could make out was the busy, busy ants below, moving with no real purpose. He couldn't pick out faces, even the hats were too small to tell if they belonged to gentlemen or ladies, and it gave him a real queer feeling, kind of like he was the king of New York without ever having to get his mug back in the papes. And, he noted, taking one big bite off of his peach, there were no sign of any of those damn fireflies this high.

Peach juice dribbled down his chin, sticky and wet. He wiped the back of his hand roughly against his skin; the slight stubble from a morning of missed shaving scratched him and he muttered a curse under his breath. Tired of the peach, he reared back his arm and threw the rest of the remaining fruit away. With a perfect arc, the peach flew through the air, then vanished, swallowed up by the buildings and the crowd of people far below.

Jack kept his ear cocked, hoping to pick out a splatter or, if his aim was even more perfect, the shout of some peeved person who'd just been pelted by a half-eaten peach. The only thing that he heard, though, apart from the buzz of the city, waking up and starting its day, was a slight clucking noise and a long, drawn out sigh.

Something told him that it wasn't Sarah, either—

"You really shouldn't have done that, Jack. You could've hurt someone, throwing fruit out onto the street like that."

—he was right.

"At least it wasn't rotten," Jack muttered. Then, turning around and leaning up against the ledge with his elbows now, he raised his eyebrows. "You're not Sarah."

David Jacobs let loose a look of such disapproval that, for a moment, Jack actually felt guilty for throwing without thinking. His blue eyes were dark, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed. No, with his voice like a mournful foghorn and the way he shook his head full of curls, he certainly _wasn't_ his sister.

"Whatcha doin' up here, Davey?"

"Sarah sent me."

Jack got a better look at David. It was easy to see that he had been a lot more productive since rising than Jack had been—he was already scrubbed and tubbed, and his blue button-down shirt and pants were freshly washed and pressed. David had already pulled his brown cap down, tufts of still-damp curls poking out from underneath. It made Jack feel like the street rat he knew deep down he'd always be, from his dusty vest that smelled of smoke and sweat to the frayed rope belt that, while unsightly, had come in handy more than once.

"Ya look spiffy," Jack said, changing the subject. He didn't want to know why Sarah had sent David up—or, worse, if her hearing her mother had only been a pretense for her to arrange getting David up to the rooftop. "Goin' somewhere?"

"Not at the moment," David answered, more than a little aware of Jack's cheap ploy. He got right back to the matter at hand. "Jack, Sarah told me that she woke up to find you at her window."

"So? Is there a problem with that?"

David longed to tell Jack that, yes, there would be quite a large problem if Mrs. Jacobs discovered that the only thing separating Jack Kelly and her precious daughter from sleeping next to each other was a simple window—and a window that, should Sarah have another lapse where she forgot what being proper meant, could very easily be opened. Sarah was smart enough to know better than to take anyone else besides David into her confidence and David would never betray his sister... just like he wouldn't stand between her and Jack, if that's what Sarah wanted.

And David knew very well that a boy like Jack Kelly was _exactly_ what Sarah wanted.

Still, David counted himself as one of Jack's friends. So, though he wanted to warn Jack about his rash behavior, he kept his thoughts to himself. Instead, he shook his head. "I was just wondering... we've had this talk before, Jack. You know you haven't been coming around as often, that's all. She's still worried that something's wrong."

"I thought I worked it out with her already. I guess you better go on and tell Sarah not to worry again. There ain't nothin' wrong. She should know that."

"You turned down her invitation for supper last night," David reminded him.

"And I told ya yesterday why I couldn't come," Jack shot back, a little more testily than he meant. "Sarah was up before, Dave. She wasn't bringin' up none of that."

"Maybe it's because she's too afraid to do so. I'm not. Jack, listen, you know we're friends... but Sarah's my sister. I would think _now_ that you know what I mean."

Jack gave a little start at David's implication but, biting his tongue, he didn't retort.

Damn it! This wasn't what he was looking for when he went to the Jacobs' apartment late last night. Jack was after a little touch of family, a reminder of who he was _now_ after stubbornly giving up the last of who he'd been. It had been foolish to believe that Emma really wanted anything to do with him and he'd finally figured that out for himself when she didn't show up. Jack didn't need her any more. He didn't need her, or this aunt he'd never met... and he certainly wanted nothing to do with a good-for-nothing father who was stuck in Sing Sing.

He had a new family now. Sarah, the first bit of home life he'd had since his mother died. Les, the kid brother he never had. And now David: the know-it-all brother who always thought he knew best.

Maybe he'd gotten what he was after all right...

David stood across the rooftop, watching Jack closely. He could see the dark circles under Jack's eyes, the frown that couldn't quite escape his chapped lips, and he knew that Sarah's murmured concerns to him earlier that morning and after weren't over nothing.

"I'm guessing things didn't go so well with your sister last night," he observed

"I don't want to talk about it, Dave," growled Jack. He turned his head away from David's stare, glancing over his shoulder, looking down over the ledge again. It was so _high_ up there.

David had to bite back the urge to keep on pushing Jack for answers. The air was tense and he was suddenly reminded of a traveling circus show his father had once brought a much younger Sarah and David along to see. There were all sorts of acts, a juggler, a sword swallower, a lion timer and a tightrope walker. The way Jack kept looking over the side of the rooftop, his eyes drawn down, his face wan and pale in the morning sunlight, David felt like Jack was that tightrope walker and one good push would send him sprawling. And, well, Sarah would kill him if he broke Jack.

So, rather than go with the questions that were nestled right on the tip of his tongue, David managed to ask quite nonchalantly, "What are you doing today?"

Tilting his head back, Jack looked at the blue sky above, the hazy clouds, the bright sun. There wasn't a firefly in sight in the morning and, for that, he chanced a small content smirk. "Didn't really have a plan or nothin', Dave. Not like you, I guess."

"You do now," David told him firmly. In surprise at the switch in David's tone, Jack tore his head from the clouds to look over at the younger boy, whipping his head so fast he almost got whiplash. David nodded encouragingly. "Come on. If we hurry, we should just about make it to the distribution center before the circulation bell first rings."

The crick in Jack's neck started bothering him again. He massaged it roughly, grunting in relief when the pain subsided just a bit. "_Unh_... I thought your ma didn't want you and—_ow—_Les sellin' the mornin' pape?"

"I don't think she'll miss me for one morning."

Jack tried another tactic. "What about Sarah, huh? I told her I would wait for her on the rooftop. Ya know, when your mother called for her to come down."

David didn't even bat an eyelash. "Mama did call for Sarah, Jack. She needed her to run to the market for fresh fruit. It seems she promised Papa a peach cobbler and we were all out." A little satisfied at how Jack managed to look a touch abashed at his words, David gestured for him to follow him towards the stairs—if anything, he just wanted Jack to get as far from the rooftop's edge as possible. "If we finish selling by lunch, she invited us both back for sandwiches and a slice of fresh-baked cobbler."

At that offer, Jack finally pushed off against the rooftop's edge. "I'll eat anything but Tibby's."

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: Thank you to LizzyBean, Pippin, Ealasaid Una and Mayarin for reviewing the last chapter :) Only three more to go now! And, since they're going to be a little shorter than this one, I should have them done soon (I hope... November 1st is really sneaking up on me this year).

- _stress, 10.23.11_


	17. sixteen: kloppman

**Disclaimer**: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and their likenesses are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.

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><p><strong><strong>Fireflies in the Morning<strong>**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER SIXTEEN;<strong>

It was a bum headline on an idle morning when Jack Kelly wasn't feeling anywhere near his best. Still, he improved the banner story that seemed the most likely, giving it his own spin even if it meant tweaking the truth here or there and, despite David's muffled tuts and ardent attempts to sell his papers on the strength of the weak headline alone, the two selling partners managed to get through most of their stack of a hundred by the time the noon bell chimed.

David knew better than to mention lunch though he was pretty darn sure he heard a grumbling coming from Jack's stomach when they were selling that last paper to the gentleman in the stovepipe hat. It was a hot day, muggy, the dregs of a summer that didn't want to give up its hold, and he felt the sweat welling up on the back of his neck. Sticky. Disgusting.

As Jack fiddled with the ends of his bandana, glancing around in search of some sucker to pawn these last few papes onto, David took the second to pause and wipe the sweat away with the handkerchief he took to carrying in his trouser pocket. Then, stuffing the damp cloth back where it belonged, he happened to look up in time to notice the figure all in white heading purposefully straight for them.

"Jack," David said, nudging him in the side to sway his friend's attention a different way. "I think someone's looking for you."

Jack froze, his eyes suddenly wide and alert rather than aimlessly searching about and, yes, still a bit bloodshot from half a night's sleep outside of the Sarah's window. His first instinct was that Emma, after ditching him last night, had tracked him down and found him just outside of Newsies Square. Following the point of David's extended finger a bit desperately, he could make out the wild tumble of curls and the fierce, determined expression on the face of the girl stalking right towards him and recognized Emma's friend at once.

But not Emma. _Where_ was his sister?

That, it seemed, was the exact question on Stress's mind—

"Where's Emma?" she demanded, stumbling a little as she walked, her hand pressed to her side as if holding in a stitch. "What have ya done with her?"

The accusation in her raspy tone had Jack turned to glance behind his shoulder out of habit if only to make sure that she really was talking to him. There was no one there—well, no, of _course_ there were plenty of people there since it was midday in New York City but no one who _counted—_and he spun back in time to find the incensed Irish girl staring daggers up at him.

He would be lying if he said it didn't spook him just a little. Regardless, courtesy of another never-say-die habit, his eyebrows rose for the Heavens in a bid to make him look as angelic and as innocent as possible. "Who, me?"

Stress wasn't buying that bit. "Aye, and who else was she supposed to be meetin' last night?"

"Beats me." Jack shrugged, giving up the ghost; he couldn't try to charm this girl, even if she was apt to falling for it. The memory of Sarah from that very morning returned him back to earth and, as a result, he made a point to look past Stress rather than right at her. Then he thought of Emma and how she never showed. His voice turned sour and he knew that David wouldn't have any bad news for his sister regarding Jack's wandering eyes after all. Sniffing, he said, "Must've been someone else, 'cause I waited 'til well after ten and there was never any sign of her."

"_What_?"

His eyes clouded over, a thick strand of his sandy brown hair falling into his face. "She stood me up," he said bitterly.

"She stood you up?" repeated Stress uncertainly.

There was a hesitance in the way she spoke, almost as if she were unfamiliar with the phrase, that Jack picked up on.

"Yeah. Stood up. That's English for I spent half the night waitin' for her and she never showed."

"Jack?"

Jack didn't bother turning to look over at David. He didn't have to. Jack heard the question in his name. "Not now, Davey."

"But if she didn't meet you, then why didn't she—I mean, where..."

"Where..." echoed Jack until the meaning of Stress's words made their way to his weary brain. "Where _what_?" Lunging out, he grabbed Stress by the edge of her sheet, hoping he had got her by the arm. "Did somethin' happen to Emma? Do you know where my sister is?"

Stress was taken aback by his sudden movement—but not too surprised that she didn't react. Jerking away as quickly as she could, wheezing painfully as she did, she flopped and pulled and fought like a dying fish wriggling on a hook. She was just as pitiful, her attempts just as in vain and she realized it when all Jack did was tighten his grip to make sure she didn't hurt herself and wait expectantly for her answer.

She went limp after a few tense seconds but the fire wasn't entirely gone from her spirit and she spat out loud, "You let go of me, Cowboy!"

There was something about the way she said his name—or, rather, the way she called him by his nickname—that made him feel as if he'd done something wrong, though he'd be damned if he knew what that was. Glancing down, he wanted to get a better look at her and very quickly regretted it. The way her eyes were glazed, the pale, pale cheeks, the dry, cracked lips... the pleading inherent in every twitch, every gasp that begged him to set her free while she still had the chance to do something about it.

More than before, Jack refused to let go of Stress no matter how fiercely she stared back at him or how red in the face she became. He couldn't. He had the feeling that, if he _did _let go, she would barely enough strength to regain her footing, let alone stand. How had she made it all the way as it was? Like _that_?

He tried to make his voice calmer, more soothing, less demanding. "Come with me—with us," Jack amended quickly when the girl shook in... well, it had to be fright because what else could it be this time of day at the end of summer? "You come with me and Dave here, sit down, get out of the sun. Then you can tell me all about Emma. Where she's been, why I'm still waitin' for her... how's that sound? Sounds good, right, Davey?"

Jack shouldn't have looked over at David. These last few weeks, he hadn't given the Jacobs boy enough credit. Because he had a home and a family and an honest-to-goodness education Jack just assumed that David didn't know what it was like to live on the New York streets like many of the other newsboys: always scrapping for dinner and dough, with a damp, smelly bunk to call home if you were lucky.

But then... then David gets one look at the girl—that's all it takes when you've lived... really lived in a slum before—and he knew. It was like that time a couple of weeks back when they stumbled upon a starving, mangy pup scrounging in the ash barrels in some dead-end back alleyway. Jack wanted to get a nickel's worth of meat from the butcher's and David agreed, but there was a knowing look in his blue eyes that said he knew that it wouldn't be enough. And when they got back to the alley to find the pup's stiffening form, David shook his head and made sure to help Jack get rid of it. But he never lost that look, the whole time, not even when he offered Jack a couple of pennies to make up for the wasted meat.

He was looking at Stress like that now.

David gulped and tried to hide the truth he could so plainly see. "I can go and get some water or... or a lemonade," he offered.

"I can't," said Stress, and maybe she regained some of her energy, or maybe Jack was paying more attention to David now... either way, she pulled her arm and to everyone's surprise, she broke free of Jack's grip. "I have to... I have to get back to Bottle Alley."

She managed to take one step, one ungainly step before the world slipped right out from under her feet and, before anyone knew it, she was falling down. She landed hard on the ground, falling on her hands and her knees before rolling onto her side. She gasped, but there was still too much pride in her to cry.

"It's too far," Jack told her stubbornly, hurriedly kneeling down beside her. That was _exactly_ what he thought would happen if he let go. "Now let me help you."

She laughed, a quiet sort of sound that might've been her clearing her throat if it wasn't for the way her dim eyes seemed to brighten all of a sudden. "Aye and you two are more alike than even you know." She lowered her head, staring down at the way her fingers curved around the cobblestones on the ground. She sighed. "Emma was always tryin' to help me, too. She never knew that I was a goner long before I met her."

"Don't talk like that. Here, Dave, take these." Jack stood up and handed David the rest of his papers then, once his hands were free, he bent over and scooped Stress up in his arms as easily as if she were a sack of potatoes. And even a sack of potatoes had to weigh more than this girl, he thought with a pang.

Stress wiggled in his hold; that was all the fight she had left. "Put me down," she protested weakly.

Jack ignored her. Glancing back over at David, he told him, "I'm gonna bring her back to Duane Street. Kloppman's there, he'll know what to do."

"And then what?" asked David.

"And then I'm gonna go find my sister."

"I'll come with you."

David knew almost as soon as half the words were out of his mouth what Jack was going to say. He wasn't disappointed.

Jack shook his head. "No, no... you go back home, Dave."

He'd never learned how to play poker without getting rolled by Kid Blink or even Racetrack and the reason for that was simple: David Jacobs' face was like an open book, you could read every thought, every emotion. And the pity he felt for Stress was so obvious, from his frown to the way his bright blue eyes seemed to lose their shine. Still, there was an eagerness—

"I want to help."

"Yeah, I know. And the best way to help me right now is to head back to your place and let your sister know that everything is fine. And it ain't a lie," Jack added quickly before David could argue, "'cause everything's gonna _be _fine. So, go on. Go."

With a jerk of his shoulders and another heft of the girl in his arms, Jack tightened his hold so that she wouldn't fall. David's expression was obvious: he thought Jack was fooling himself. He let him.

"Okay, Jack. If you need me, you know where I'll be then. If... if you're sure."

"I'm sure. Thanks, Davey." Despite everything that had happened since last night, Jack still managed to work up one hell of a cocky grin. "You know what? If all goes well, you tell Sarah I'll be joinin' you for supper tonight."

This time David just nodded as Jack started off towards Duane Street, but deep down he knew without any doubt that there would still be only five for dinner that night.

* * *

><p>As superintendent of the Newsboys' Lodging House, Alfred Kloppman thought he was rather used to the strange things the boys thought they could get away with bringing back to the House.<p>

He could never forget the time Bumlets came back from a night out at Tibby's, carrying what looked like a single blade from a ceiling fan with him. Or what about the jar of fancy hair goop Race insisted on bringing in with him that nearly caught fire when the poor boy lit a cigar too close? Then there was that stray cat of Mush's that caused all that trouble the time it got into the attic and yowled for two days straight before Kloppman found out and finally figured a way to let it out back again...

However, not even Fluffy was as strange as seeing Jack Kelly walk into the front lobby, a slumbering girl held lightly in his arms.

His ledger shut with a snap before Kloppman removed his glasses, rubbed each lens once and then set he frames back on his nose. No luck. The girl was still there. Kloppman raised his eyebrows. "Cowboy?"

Jack met Kloppman's questioning gaze and then, because those dark eyes seemed to know so much, he looked away. He looked down, finding refuge in checking on Stress.

Her eyes were closed. She was sleeping, and the only reason Jack still knew she was alive was because of the coughs. Terrible things they were, causing her to buck then stiffen as he carried her, moaning softly when they were done as sleep reclaimed her. It only happened twice during the quick walk back to Duane Street but the first time the coughs started spooked Jack so bad he nearly dropped her. The second time he was prepared, but that didn't mean he wasn't spooked.

He rearranged her in his arms—fast asleep, she weighed him down more than when he started towards Duane Street—and dared a peek up at Kloppman. The old man was still waiting. It was amazing how Jack was able to effect something close to a shrug without dropping Stress. "She needs help, Kloppy."

Kloppman thought about it for a second. He knew it was in express defiance of the Children's Aid Society's rules to do what he was about to do but, well, that wasn't going to stop him from doing it, was it? He stepped around the front of his desk. "Fifth floor," he said decisively, already moving towards the stairs, "private beds up there. Follow me."

Jack followed.

Now, Alfred Kloppman was a veteran of the Civil War all those years again where a man learned enough about medicine to make sure he got out of the fight in as whole of a piece as he could. There were rumors that there was a peg leg under one of his trouser pants, or that he was missing most of the toes on his right foot but when one of the newsies had a busted arm or a broken nose or a vicious stab wound that they touted as merely a cut, there was only one man to go to and for two reasons. One, because Kloppman was good and he was fair and he didn't charge like all the rest of the doctors in town. And two, because Kloppman had been working with the Manhattan newsboys for so long that he knew better than to ask questions.

But the thing was this: just because Kloppman didn't ask questions, that didn't mean the boys weren't compelled to explain.

They were just turning off the fourth floor landing when Jack found the words rushing out: "I had to bring her here. She's a Bottle Alley girl—"

"One of Cookie's?"

"Yeah. I couldn't let her go all the way back there when she looked like one good gust of wind would knock her on her ass, right? Not when we're that much closer." They were halfway to the fifth floor and Jack's arms were beginning to feel like they were on fire. The steps weren't helping any but he had to agree with Kloppman: the private rooms on the fifth floor, a couple of beds with curtains that went for ten cents instead of a nickel... they were hardly ever full and, besides, who would think to go looking for a girl in one of them? Just a few more steps now... Jack grunted. "You'll be able to help her, won't ya?"

"Depends," answered Kloppman, opening the dormitory door and ushering Jack in first. "What's wrong with the girl?"

For just one quick second, Jack thought about lying. It was his immediate instinct, whenever he didn't know what to say or he didn't want to say what he knew he _should _say but, damn it, this was old Kloppy. He couldn't lie.

"It's a cough," he admitted, "and I think she's burnin' up inside. She's awful hot."

Kloppman nodded and then pointed towards the row of private beds at the end of the room with curtains drawn around them. "Put her in the farthest bed."

"Isn't Snoddy sleepin' in there?"

"He was, but I moved him out this morning. He's breathing better now."

Jack walked over to the bed Kloppman pointed out but found it difficult to yank the curtain open without putting the girl down. Kloppman, who was rolling his sleeves up, stopped what he was doing when he noticed Jack's troubles. Joining the young man at the bed side, he swung the curtains open and stepped aside so that Jack could get nearer to the mattress.

"Right there," Kloppman instructed. "And, if you can, try to get that sheet off of her."

"But she's shiverin'" pointed out Jack.

"That's the fever talking, Cowboy. I'll get her something heavier, try to sweat it out."

As Jack set Stress down—she muffled and cried out in her sleep but didn't do anything but cling tighter to her sheet—Kloppman went off in search of a quilt. He found one fresh from the laundry and brought it back with him to the fifth floor. He wasn't surprised to see that Jack hadn't gotten the sheet off of her and, instead of trying, he covered her with the quilt the best he could.

In an attempt to save his own aching knees, he also thought ahead and brought a pitcher of cool water and a rag with him. Kloppman then busied himself with setting the girl's head against the pillow before placing a cool rag on her fever forehead. For just one moment, the old superintendent thought he saw her eyes flicker but then she was still again.

Having done that, the old superintendent pulled the curtains around Stress and nodded over at Jack. "Let's let her sleep some, shall we?" He led the way back into the hall but paused once they'd left the dormitory. Kloppman crossed his arms over his chest. "Now that we're out here alone, why don't you tell me why you're helping this girl. You're a good kid, Cowboy, but I think this is being just a little _too _good."

This time Jack didn't even think of lying—even if he did entertain the idea of pretending he hadn't heard the question.

He sighed and just managed to resist the urge to kick the door in frustration. Kloppman was still waiting. "You remember that girl who was lookin' for Francis Sullivan, don't ya? What was it, almost a week ago?"

"I do."

Jack took a deep breath and leaned his head back up against the wall. "That was my sister. I know, I never said I had a sister, 'cause I thought she was gone, alright? But she wasn't and now she is and..." He ran his hands roughly through his hair, his eyes suddenly wild and wide. "That girl back in there is my only link to Emma."

"Okay," said Kloppman after another moment's hard thought, "I see. That case, I'll do what I can. You have my word, Cowboy. Now, do me a favor, man the desk for me while I get the girl a fresh rag? Maybe get something for that cough of hers, too."

"Um, yeah. Sure thing, Kloppy."

And Jack, massaging his arms and dying for a smoke, took the escape that Kloppman offered him as quickly as he could. Something inside had him worrying about Emma's friend, mainly the fact that he was still worrying so damn much about Emma herself, but if he trusted Alfred Kloppman with his life—and he did—then there were no better hands he could leave Stress in.

It was barely two o'clock in the afternoon and with the evening edition still a couple of hours away, there wasn't much for Jack to do while he waited in the lobby. It was rare that any of the boys would stop back between selling, especially on such a nice, hot summer day like that one, and he wasn't surprised to find the lodging house empty as he waited for Kloppman to reappear downstairs again.

In the end Jack kept his hands busy rifling through the ledgers, making notes and drawing stick figure horses in the corner on random pages. He kept an ear out for any of the fellas returning to the lodging house early or for when Kloppman came back, seeing as how he didn't want to be caught going through Kloppman's things after all the help the superintendent

"Well, I've done the best I could," Kloppman said, wiping his hands on his handkerchief as he came down the last few stairs, "but that one's living on God's time now."

That was not what Jack had been hoping to here. The girl's awake and healthy and ready to tell you all about where you could find Emma... now _that_ was what Jack was listening for.

"But she has to be okay," he argued out loud, speaking more to himself than to Kloppman. "She's the only one who might be able to help me find my sister. What am I supposed to do?"

The boy was charming, there was no doubt about that. He could spin a cock and bull story better than half the fellas who lodged the Duane Street. Half the time half the words out of his mouth were a lie and yet, for some reason, Kloppman felt touched at his concern for a sister he hadn't seen in ages.

Besides Kloppman had, on Moira Porter's dime, spent the last five years or so watching over Jack, making sure he didn't get into too much trouble—save a stint in the Refuge that Moira felt served her brother's young son. However, though he was the only one who knew the truth about Francis Sullivan, he'd let himself be pulled into the charade that _was_ Jack Kelly. In time, he'd even come to care about the boy which was why—

"Cowboy?"

"Yeah, Kloppy?"

"That little girl? Your Emma? I think I might know where she could be..."

* * *

><p><strong>End Note<strong>: I know it's been awhile but, well, I know I have to finish this before I start anything new and, considering I just joined the Newsies Union... yeah. So, I figured, this story only had three chapters left - two now - and it's been hanging on the edge for too long. After this there's one last long chapter and then an epilogue so I hope to finish that up fairly soon :) 'Til then, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter... it was certainly a doozy for me to work through!

- _stress, 01.28.12_


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